When a land use disturbance is contemplated, answers to the question ol what to 

 replace or produce through reclamation, and what environmental conditions to 

 create and in what amounts, are not selt-e\ ident. A solid stand of wheatgrass may 

 provide ground cover and support grazing tor livestock, lor example, but has very 

 limited value tor most wildlife species. It can also be assumed that space and dollars 

 available tor mitigating actions will be limited; thus choices will have to be made 

 regarding which wildlife resources will be enhanced and to what degree. 



Decision processes can best be served if the information furnished to 

 decisionmakers is focused primarily on the results produced by animal-specific 

 actions as opposed to the ecological processes leading to the results. The probability 

 ol accurately predicting results, however, will increase proportionately b\ the 

 increase in knowledge about the ecological processes involved, in the absence of 

 complete and perfect ecological knowledge, estimated numbers of animals associated 

 with given conditions can ser\e as an alternative basis for decisions about 

 environmental actions. 



Another premise of WILDMIS is that the fundamental actions and intormation 

 required in the mitigation or management planning process does not vary with the 

 nature of the disturbance. One needs the same types of information about 

 environmental conditions whether the cause of the potential disturbance is oil shale 

 development, coal mining, timber harvest, reservoir construction, dry land farming, 

 or urbanization of rural areas. 



Decisionmakers generally do not have the time, inclination or need to delve into 

 the voluminous reasons a particular result is predicted. They do, however, need to 

 know how one result or set of results compares with other sets of results when 

 choosing between times, locations and kinds of disturbances. They also must know 

 the cumulative results of numerous disturbances in a geographic region. These 

 considerations comprise a need tor a macroscopic approach to impact assessment 

 and mitigation planning. 



Species of plants and animals constitute the fundamental divisions of living 

 components of ecosystems, and the end products of ecosystems are the indiv idual 

 animals that collectively form populations. Habitat, principally plants and the non- 

 living environment in which the animals live, is the means to the end product 

 animals. At least animals are the end product insofar as public agencies responsible 

 for their welfare are concerned, it follows then that the fundamental units upon 

 w hich decisionmakers can most directly base decisions are the numbers of individual 

 animals of each species involved in a decision. As those individual species are 

 combined into groups of animal species represented indirectly by some index of 

 habitat condition, the end products (individual animals) get lost in the process. 



RECENT AND CURRENT APPLICATIONS 



WILDMIS was initially created for and demonstrated in conjunction with oil 

 shale development in Colorado and Utah. ' Presently it is being applied and evaluated 

 intensively in connection with phosphate development in southeastern Idaho by 

 university graduate research assistants in cooperation with biologists in state and 

 federal agencies. WILDMIS is also being used for coal mining impact assessment 

 and mitigation planning and for ring-necked pheasant (Phasianus colchicus) 

 enhancement management planning by state wildlife biologists in Colorado. The 

 PATREC portion is being tested in Wyoming for dabbling and diving duck habitat 

 classification. Accumulation of extensive experience with WILDMIS will take 

 several years. One field evaluation of the habitat evaluation component of the system 

 (PATREC) has been completed. - 



OVERVIEW 



WILDMIS translates ecological, biological, and management information bits 

 into outputs (basically for one wildlife species at a time) that can be used simply and 



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