mation in a format that is useful in managing animals through managing 

 their corresponding habitats. The philosophical basis for F&WHR dates 

 backtoJosephGrinneland Aldo Leopold. Intertwined is the current state- 

 of-the-art of ecosystem approaches to natural resource management; in 

 this case, an attempt to view wildlife habitat from the animal community as 

 well as the single species perspective. The philosophy has been incorpora- 

 ted in the. . .environmental legislation of the 1970s that was mentioned 

 earlier. 

 The F&WHR system has already been adapted for use in other areas of the 

 west. I '^•-o-- 1 The system, originally applied to forest lands, is being adap'ted for 

 rangelands of the great basin in southeastern Oregon in order to demonstrate 

 applicability to rangeland conditions. Six of 1 4 planned "chapters" of this effort have 

 been completed. -^23,24,25,26,27 



The F&WHR system divides habitat considerations for terrestrial wildlife into 

 three general parts: (1) the habitat (described by plant community and structural 

 condition) association of each species for feeding, reproduction, and resting; (2) the 

 value of special habitat elements (such as snags, edges, dead and down woody 

 material, riparian zones, cliffs, caves, and talus) to associated species; and (3) 

 development of more elaborate habitat capability models for selected or featured 

 species. '•*''*-''^ 



The information on species relationships to habitat is readily put into a form 

 suitable for computer manipulation. It can then be used in long-range planning or in 

 analyzing impact across the species spectrum of management alternatives that 

 involve manipulation of vegetation. There have been several successful computer 

 programs developed to handle various kinds and varieties of F&WHR data bases. 

 Successful computer application has included both mini-computers and standard 

 computers. By far the best known of these systems for storage and recall of data has 

 been David R. Patton's RUN WILD system,"* and its subsequent modification, the 

 Procedure for Pennsylvania.-'* 



HABITAT MANAGEMENT AND INDICATOR SPECIES 



Thomas et al.-*^ grouped species according to "life forms" that showed affinity to 

 similar habitat. This concept was expanded from that proposed by Antti Haapanen 

 for birds in the Finnish forest. '<> Most systematic groupings of species have been 

 morphological in nature. Such groupings are flexible. Analysis can create as many 

 categories as make biological sense in terms of habitat use in a localized area. Some 

 knowledgeable works (Hal Salwasser, USDA Forest Service, personal communica- 

 tion) believe that ecological guilds will prove to be superior to life forms for the 

 purposes described above. The important thing is that it probably will be necessary 

 to group species in some manner that accounts for their response to habitat features. 



These groupings were developed in anticipation of the regulations issued pursuant 

 to the National Forest Management Act of 1 976,- which specified the monitoring of 

 indicator species in National Forest System management. Theoretically, indicator 

 species represent or reflect the welfare of a larger group of species. The regulations 

 call for a description of just what changes are implied for the status of the chosen 

 indicator species. Once appropriate life forms are created for local situations, the 

 welfare of a group of species that occurs within a plant community and successional 

 stages can be represented by the status of an indicator species chosen from within 

 that group. Some have tried to expand the use of the life form concept beyond the 

 specific area for which the information was developed; it has worked poorly in such 

 cases. 



The appropriateness of using indicator species to reflect changes in habitat suita- 

 bility or condition is a subject of continuing debate. Sampling of several indicator 

 species status over vast areas of National Forests will be costly in time and money. 

 Sampling must be intensive enough to focus upon statistical differences in popula- 



31 



