game species and furbearers. Previously, Class I species ratings 

 could not be obtained in an area that did not support threatened 

 and endangered species. 



As a result, 32 units were upgraded to Class I in habitat value 

 (mostly in the eastern DFWP regions) and 43 units were upgraded 

 to Class I in species value (about 40 percent of the upgrades 

 were in Region 1). An additional 19 units achieved overall Class 

 I status from these revisions. 



The accuracy of the wildlife inventory is good, especially for 

 habitat and species ratings. The data quality could be improved 

 by adding species use, density figures for each type of range, 

 and population estimates by hunting districts. The data base 

 could be expanded to include environmental assessment, land use, 

 and public access. 



More accurate methods of assessing consumptive (and 

 non-consurapti ve ) recreation values should be explored. 

 Currently, non-consumptive uses are given more weight than 

 consumptive uses; a Class I designation cannot be achieved 

 without non-consumptive attributes. Consumptive recreation 

 value, measured by success rates, hunting pressure, and 

 non-resident pressure, was extrapolated from hunting districts to 

 the wildlife units (using only one year of hunting data). 



These refinements are important because recreational value was 

 used as a tie-breaker in establishing overall value class in 

 about 40 percent of the units, downgrading the units in about 75 

 percent of the cases. 



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