Workgroup Dialogues
Themed and inclusive of cross-sectoral participation, onsite 1.5-hour Workgroups are set up for the delivery of three 15-minute Model & Methodology (M&M) presentations, then equal time is provided for vibrant, facilitated interaction aimed at identifying customizable best practices, solving common problems, and supporting opportunities for replicability, resources, and partnering. Summit registrants can self-select into Workgroups through the Whova app and receive the eWorkbook for use in the Workgroups. Interested Workgroup presenters receive support from the WRF team in advanceto prepare 1-page summaries for the eWorkbook. Please contact Kayla Andra (CWSummit@wildlifeandparks.org) to set up a brief meeting.
WORKGROUP A ~ History, Governance and Economy (Wildlife as Asset vs. Commodity)
Workgroup A examines the historic, social, economic, and governance roots of our current-day relationship with wildlife—from the plundering market hunting and rapid settlement era to the advent of parks and wildlife-protective laws and ordinances. Evoking patriotism, valuing wildlife as a national asset to restore in Canada, Mexico, and the United States accounts for the mass wildlife loss of the 1600s-1800s and involves museums and park interpreters in revealing the abundance there once was to establish a new baseline from which to judge progress in wildlife recovery—confronting wildlife crime and trafficking, the morality of ruining ecosystems for future generations, and the role of the military and law enforcement in wildlife security.
WORKGROUP C ~ Animal Reproduction, Genetic Diversity and Restoration of Park Population Viability
Workgroup C bridges ex situ breeding and husbandry efforts and the restoration of animals to habitats with characteristics that ensure animals survive in the wild. It defines "assurance population," drawing upon reproductive technology and genetics. Workgroup C aims to uncover best practices for establishing population viability across species types and classes, defining fish as wildlife, and increasing nurseries raising corals, plants and trees banking on a future of under water and overland habitats.
WORKGROUP B ~ Wildlife as Community & Connectivity
Workgroup B examines when and how North American society disconnected itself so much from the ecosystem, with an opportunity for social scientists to identify points in time and situations where wildlife became disregarded. Innovative gateway community initiatives are preventing animals from becoming "outlaws" through habituation. Are there opportunities to deprioritize the "lethal" in wildlife management? This Workgroup studies the history of homesteading and key mechanisms that meet the common needs of wildlife and family farmers/ranchers: protect productive lands. It also considers the valuing of wildlife by various faith traditions. Members of Tribes, First Nations and Mexican Indigenous communities will share practices guided by traditional ecological knowledge and cultural and spiritual values.
WORKGROUP D ~ Natural Habitats & Food for Wildlife
Workgroup D examines the tension between wildlife needs for habitat and human endeavors to transform it. It will identify best practices for provisioning for wildlife as ways to meet their needs are paved over or squeezed out. It reveals opportunities to foster wildlife synanthropy in unexpected places, while looking for cutting-edge landscape architecture, technology and engineering that adapts development to meet wildlife habitat needs in natural ways. It envisions wildlife predators-as-collaborators and on the flip side, how pets can risk wildlife.
WORKGROUP E ~ Veterinary Care, Rescue and Release + Disaster Warning and Response
When wildlife are injured, displaced, or threatened by disaster or extreme weather, rapid expert intervention accounting for wildlife needs is a critical Collaborating with Wildlife measure. Workgroup E discovers the latest in ER, veterinary and rehabilitative care, and partnership strategies, as well as technological innovation in natural disaster preparedness and response on land and sea for flood, sudden cold, drought and fire. It also seeks out the prevention and mitigation of wildlife harm through natural or engineered processes. Post-injury and rehabilitation, it looks to place animals in places recovered or not too damaged to sustain them.
WORKGROUP G ~ Wildlife Takes for Sustenance, Game, and Population Management
Hunting and fishing as forms of human sustenance and culture play a role in wildlife management to prevent overpopulation harming habitat in permanent ways. Workgroup G examines benefits of the North American Model of Conservation and explores how conservation expenditures from tags, licenses, and fees are prioritized. It also uncovers new technology that is transforming fair chase, and highlights hunter/fisher-led innovations to protect habitat and prevent natural behavior change.
WORKGROUP F ~ Disease Mitigation, Biosecurity, and Outcompeting Invasives
Often unnoticed or ignored, disease, parasites, and invasives can devastate native North American wildlife populations with alarming speed. Adopting a OneHealth approach for humans, livestock, wildlife, and the environments they share can drive collaborative ways to avoid harm across all affected species. Environmental change, parasites, stress, and pollutants are weakening some wildlife populations, making them vulnerable to permanent loss. Workgroup F raises the urgency of this and strategies like genetic research to increase resistance and interventions to remove risks in areas around parks that might otherwise be overcome ecosystem, with an opportunity for social scientists to identify points in time and situations where wildlife became disregarded. Innovative gateway community initiatives are preventing animals from becoming "outlaws" through habituation. Are there opportunities to deprioritize the "lethal" in wildlife management? This Workgroup studies the history of homesteading and key mechanisms that meet the common needs of wildlife and family farmers/ranchers: protect productive lands. It also considers the valuing of wildlife by various faith traditions. Members of Tribes, First Nations and Mexican Indigenous communities will share practices guided by traditional ecological knowledge and cultural and spiritual values.
WORKGROUP H ~ Crossings, Passageways, Tracking, Migrations and Corridors
Wildlife regularly confront roads, fences, railroad tracks, shipping lanes, and flight paths that split their ranges. Corridors for wildlife travel and safe crossings are vital. Workgroup H reveals innovations in transportation infrastructure and fencing enabling wildlife to move with less disruption of natural behaviors, injury, and death, and how to make borders, barriers, walls and waters used by boats more wildlife friendly. It also looks at new tech, architecture, construction innovations, and real-time monitoring of wildlife passage and migration.
WORKGROUP J ~ Innovative Architecture, Construction, and Infrastructure
Workgroup J explores residential, business, and industrial complexes reimagined with forethought to retain or recreate natural habitat with ways wildlife can meet their needs. Best practices to explore include neighborhood habitat initiatives, fabricating wildlife homes, using abandoned human structures to form living habitats like reefs, and modifying windows and illumination in buildings to prevent bird collisions. Corporate leaders, architects and engineers will be called upon to share M&Ms ensuring dams, wind turbines, and solar energy spare wildlife, and measures to mitigate the rapid growth in data centers. This Workgroup also confronts risks to wildlife from waste and refuse in park gateways.
WORKGROUP L ~ Zoos & Aquariums as Conservation Partners for the Public Sector
The modern zoo and aquarium have evolved from their origins as menageries to be conservation leaders often at the cutting edge of contributing human actions forming the four pillars of Collaborating with Wildlife. Yet often government agencies charged with recovering wildlife are unaware that zoos and aquariums offer more than simply in-facility conservation work like husbandry and visitor education. Workgroup L serves as an introduction to the Zoos & Aquariums as Conservation Partners for the Public Sector Training Track involving Workgroups C, E, F and M.
WORKGROUP K ~ Recreation, Tourism and Gateway Commerce
Gateway economies thrive when community-based recreation outfitters, park tour guides, and town-based hospitality services flourish because of the draw of wildlife experiences. But wildlife disturbance, displacement, and conflict results when visitors get too close, damage habitat, or fail to secure attractants, and when technology takes recreationists to the remotest places wildlife live. Workgroup K focuses on the promise of destination tourism and gateway town stewardship, campground hosting, and motorized and non- motorized recreation innovations for Collaborating with Wildlife on land and water.
WORKGROUP M ~ Cultural Responsibility, Revitalization and Expressions
Evolving from the 1600s-1800s view of wildlife as threats, pests, and commodities, Workgroup M asks what visual, narrative, audible, and experiential methods can build a society that genuinely values wildlife as a legacy we take responsibility for. It shares the role of social science research on human behavioral change that provides a foundation for understanding how these methods actually shift how people relate to wildlife. Tribes, First Nations and Mexican Indigenous communities and others will take leadership in sharing their spiritual connections, cultural practices, and community revitalization through wildlife recovery. It leverages conservation photography and film, pet animals, exhibits, curriculum at all levels, and immersion programs, to develop wildlife empathy, and seeks out wildlife valued in religion, art, and history.
WORKGROUP N ~ Investment, Philanthropy and Market Incentives
Collaborating with Wildlife at the continental scale requires resources matching the challenge, and Workgroup N doubles as an Investor Forum making funding Collaborating with Wildlife (CW) best practices a charity cause inspiring giving with a sense of efficacy. It will draw philanthropists and investors at all scales to identify and act upon CW-driven ethics. Tapping traditional philanthropy and the marketplace, Wall Street, park friends groups, gateway chambers of commerce, and producer incentive programs, Hollywood, sports, and social media fundraising, as well as available government resources, the Investor Forum aims to equip funders to build purposeful conservation legacies with a sense of efficacy.
WORKGROUP N ~
Investment, Philanthropy and Market Incentives