The value of international collaboration
Dr Cat McNicol
Looking outside of our own shores can offer valuable insight and answers to the challenges facing the future of shooting, says Dr Cat McNicol.
I recently returned from the International Union of Game Biologists (IUGB) conference, which occurs every two years and brings together researchers and practitioners from across Europe.
This year’s conference focussed on the future of wildlife management against a changing social and environmental backdrop. We are experiencing this change first-hand in the UK, with increasing scrutiny, regulation and controversy around the way we work with wildlife. The situation is not unique to our little island.
Across the world, there is increasing interaction between humans and wildlife, leading in some cases to conflict, and in other cases to wildlife declines or recovery. This interface between people and wildlife has been used to gain a greater understanding of animal (and human) behaviour in a bid to improve the way we undertake management.
For example, many of you will have stumbled across a roe fawn, hiding in some long grass, waiting for their mother to return. This anti-predator strategy is fairly effective… unless you are in a meadow which is about to get mowed. Researchers in Germany are investigating where fawns are found in relation to the surrounding habitat to help guide mowing best practice for land managers and reduce fawn mortality.
Different approaches to management
On the flip side, the success of recovering and expanding wolf populations in regions of Italy has led to their increased prevalence in urbanised areas. In some cases it appears wolves take advantage of structures such as roads and walking trails to hunt, leading to increased contact with humans and domestic livestock.
What makes these scenarios even more tricky is the different approaches that regions and countries have to management, which particularly in Central Europe, becomes challenging when animals are not bound by regional and national borders.
Here lies the value of international collaboration. Rather than digging in and focussing on their own back yard, researchers at IUGB find opportunities to collaborate, be that documenting the differences in European wolf management legislation or trying to find a middle ground for moose hunting and conservation in Scandinavia.
We may not have moose, bears and wolves in the UK, but we do experience similar challenges working within and across the countries and different legal systems in the UK. Landscape-scale management of wildlife, regardless of regional and national boundaries is vital to controlling expanding populations and conserving the vulnerable ones.
As Albert Einstein once said: “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
Attending research conferences such as IUGB provides us with opportunities to collaborate and learn from others on how we could tackle problems and create solutions for sustainable hunting and wildlife management.
By building connections and exchanging knowledge, we can make BASC and shooting in the UK more resilient and prepared for a changing social and environmental future.
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