COMPONENTS OF WILDMIS 



Ranking Wildlife Species by Priority - RANKER 



Many criteria can have a bearing on which species become beneficiaries and which 

 are omitted when decisions are made about investment of public or private dollars, 

 space and time. These criteria can generally be sorted into four categories- 

 ecological, public interest, cost to manage (cost of action taken to conserve, enhance 

 or protect), and economic (production or suppression of income). 



The RANKER system^.^ can be used to rank any number of species according to 

 integrated input related to the four criteria identified. The system does not address 

 the one consideration that can override all of the above, political influence (both 

 internal and external to an organization). RANKER has been used only in the oil 

 shale application and is the least developed and least refined of the four WILDMIS 

 components. 



Setting Wildlife Production Objectives • OBJSET 



If there are no formally stated wildlife production objectives for a particular 

 management unit (i.e., number of animals in the population or harvest), an argument 

 can be made that a reduction in yield is insignificant. On the other hand, if yield 

 objectives formally adopted by the responsible agency do exist, and are accompanied 

 by appropriate standards, then there is a base of reference against which a predicted 

 habitat loss can be evaluated in absolute terms. The amount of the yield loss can also 

 be related to the total current production of that management unit. 



Further, a formal objective clearly communicates to all concerned exactly what is 

 to be produced, how much is to be produced, where it is to be produced, by when, and 

 what the probable cost will be. An example of a production objective is: "Produce a 

 population of 120 deer on the Buckhorn Management Unit by 1 October 1987 at a 

 total cost of no more than $650,000."* Accompanying standards should address (1) 

 habitat (e.g.. no more than 20% of the unit shall be comprised of saltbush-grease- 

 wood [Atriplex-Sarcobatus]), and (2) population (e.g., the 1 October herd 

 composition shall be no fewer than 40 adult bucks: lOOadult does, and no fewer than 

 75 fawns: 1 00 adult does), and may include (3) recreation (e.g., the herd shall sustain a 

 minimum annual harvest of 15 deer). 



Given the existence of such conditions as public policy prior to a habitat 

 disturbance, there is less likelihood ofdispute over the extent of the mitigation action 

 required to sustain that objective. The mitigation objective can be stated in identical 

 format with only internal numbers modified to reflect the extent of the population 

 loss that is to be replaced. This component facilitates the thinking required in order 

 for a wildlife agency to decide exactly what it wants from a mitigation action, species 

 by species. 



Impact A ssessment and Habitat A nalysis - PA TREC 



The PATREC (derived from PATtern RECognition) habitat evaluation system 

 provides two ways of measuring habitat values. The first is the probability (p 0.01 to 

 0.99) that a tract of interest has the potential to support a high density of a particular 

 animal species. The second is an estimate of the population density that the tract has 

 the potential to support. The density can also be expanded to provide an estimate of 

 the potential population size on the whole tract. 



The first order use of a tract analysis by PATREC is to estimate the potential 

 population density (and total population size) under existing conditions (Table 1). 

 The tract can then be reevaluated (using one or more new sets of conditions) to 

 predict potential densities anticipated as a consequence of habitat changes (either 



*Costs can be corrected after a cost-of-management analysis has been completed. 



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