to place economic values on wetland wildlife are well documented. 20,2* Early efforts 

 at evaluation of wetland wildlife habitat centered on estimates of the dollar value of 

 the wildlife product or of man days of recreational use. Current techniques focus on 

 the habitat that produces the wildliie. A system of ranking freshwater wetlands for 

 wildlife value. de\eloped by Golet,-^ was based on biophysical characteristics of 

 wetlands. Parallel economic \alues were derived from measures of public willingness 

 to pav for purchase of wildlife wetlands."^ The SCS has adapted this approach to their 

 evaluation system in Massachusetts." The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service-'* is 

 developing a Habitat Evaluation Procedure (HEP) applicable to wetlands and other 

 aquatic and terrestrial sites. It is based on specific habitat needs of certain species of 

 wildlife and generates a measure called habitat units. The procedure requires detailed 

 information on the habitat requirements of a species and is applicable only to those 

 species for which this information is available. 



The HEP procedure is relatively untested and the Golet system was developed for 

 northeastern conditions. Species specific and biophysical systems have different 

 assumptions and strengths. Both need wider testing and comparison and the 

 potential for integration of the two should be explored. 



WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS FOR FISH AND WILDLIFE? 



Wetland wildlife habitat protection has emphasized purchase of wetland refuges 

 by federal and state agencies. But wetlands purchase programs will never be 

 sufficiently well financed to protect enough habitat from the modern stresses 

 represented by dredging, filling and draining activities. As long as wetlands were 

 viewed as having value only for wildlife, the prospects of maintaining an adequate 

 network of wetland wildlife habitat were dim. Research of the last decade has 

 identified health, safety and welfare values that stem from basic ecological functions 

 of wetlands and these issues have attracted interest in and support for public 

 management of wetlands to maintain these functions. 



Along the coasts the interests of the fin fish and shellfish industry appear to 

 generate sufficient public support for wetland regulation. Inland fish and wildlife 

 values do not appear to generate, on their own, sufficient support for wetland 

 regulation. Inland wildlife then becomes a beneficial spin-off value from wetland 

 management for other socially and economically important reasons. Professional 

 wildlife biologists, wildlife agencies, public and private and private persons 

 concerned about wildlife will have to develop good understanding of other ecological 

 functions of wetlands so that they can lend support for wetland management in the 

 broadest context. 



THE RESEARCH CHALLENGE FOR THE FUTURE 



The greatest research need is the one that will be most effective in improving our 

 understanding of how wetlands function and provide values to society. Water is the 

 most important "forcing function" in wetlands. It is the ebb, flow and flushing of 

 tides, the seasonal filling of potholes from snow melt and their draw-down by 

 evaporation, and the periodic flooding of riverine wetlands that controls the 

 production of vegetation, fish and wildlife habitat and biochemical functions of 

 wetlands. Too few hydrologists are studying wetlands. Most are employed by the 

 U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Geological Survey. University studies of wetland 

 hydrology are few and largely limited to southeastern and Gulf coastal wetlands.-"^ 



Much of what we know about wetland soils and their chemistry comes from 

 research on how to drain them and use them for other than saturated or flooded 

 conditions. Studies of flooded, anaerobic soil chemistry are difficult but necessary to 

 understand when wetlands act as "sinks" or "exporters" of nutrients, wastes and 

 heavy metals. Movement of water through organic muck and peat soils is poorly 

 understood. We do not know if basic laws, useful to engineers working with dry soils, 

 apply to wetland soils. But better information is needed to understand the function of 



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