About Us
The Wildlife Society is an international non-profit scientific and educational association dedicated to excellence in wildlife stewardship through science and education. Our mission is to enhance the ability of wildlife professionals and wildlife students to conserve diversity, sustain productivity, and ensure responsible use of wildlife resources and their habitats. The Western Section of The Wildlife Society is comprised of over 1000 wildlife managers, biologists, ecologists, and students from California, Nevada, Hawaii, and Guam all devoted to the sustainable conservation of wildlife in the western United States region. There are eight geographic Chapters and seven student Chapters that make up the Western Section.
In order to promote sustainable management of wildlife resources the Western Section hosts numerous workshops for wildlife professionals and students to provide the latest in wildlife techniques and offer specialized training for special status species. Check out all upcoming meetings and workshops on our new events page. In addition the Western Section holds an annual meeting where wildlife professionals, students, and other wildlife enthusiasts share their latest information in the wildlife management field.
The New Path Forward
by Jeff Alvarez
Although The Wildlife Society was established in 1937, the Western Section was not founded until 1954, making this 70-years of serving members and enhancing the professional quality of biologists in the States of California, Nevada, and Hawaii, along with the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Territories of American Samoa and Guam, and the Freely Associated States of Micronesia, Palau, and the Republic of the Marshall Islands. As you can guess, it is a very large and diverse area—diverse in wildlife, habitats, and people.
The Western Section is a science-based, professional society composed of wildlife managers, administrators, researchers, and students. We strongly support engaging and educating the public to accept science-based recommendations wildlife conservation and management. Our mission has been to enhance the ability of wildlife students and professionals to conserve wildlife diversity, sustain productivity, and ensure responsible use of wildlife resources and their habitats. The Western Section is comprised of over 1,000 wildlife students and professionals, all devoted to the sustainable conservation of wildlife in the western United States and its territories. We continue to grow in membership and influence through eight geographic Chapters and seven student Chapters that make up the Western Section.
We have a broad mission to act as advocates, advisors, managers, and conservationists to assist resource agencies, land managers, and other to conserve native wildlife. Along the way, we have learned that doing so requires supporting the biologists, ecologists, botanists, entomologists, and many others that spend their time in the field doing the hard work of preserving our natural heritage. The Western Section offers and supports Chapters that offer numerous workshops focused on the natural history and management of wildlife species. These workshops can offer specialized techniques, hands on experience, and networking opportunities, to name just a few benefits. The Western Section also offers the annual conference were anyone and everyone is invited to either present their data, field updates, or studies, or to attend to become an informed viewer of these presentations. The information sharing, networking experiences, and options for additional workshops, meet-ups, and other professional enhancements is valuable whether you are a student or 40-year veteran.
As a reminder, The Western Section is a volunteer-run organization, you can easily get involved and play a role in the direction that the Western Section goes, and what it offers to its members. The only prerequisite is a little interest to help and a little passion. Your influence can make a difference.
On a personal note: I write this introduction to the Western Section hoping that you will see the potential that is offered here. Occasionally that potential may require a little help from you. By that I mean that science is an iterative process by which we all learn from those that came before us and those doing the work-of-today. If you are contributing to the work-of-today, share it with those around you through the annual conference or chapter symposia, through publications, and just by getting the word out one person at a time. “Wildlife” is our passion, but the “Society” portion plays a huge role in our success as professionals. In order to do those things that we all thought we might do when we first received our degrees we need to work together, rather than compete.
My plea to you is to share what you learn.
Jeff Alvarez, President-Elect, 2024
Western Section of The Wildlife Society
The Path Forward
by Jeff Davis
The Western Section of The Wildlife Society (TWS) was established in 1954. Our first president was Starker Leopold. I never met Starker, but his monumental book,
The California Quail, helped inspire me to pursue wildlife biology as a life path. I certainly wasn’t the only one influenced by this book. In fact, TWS recognized its influence by bestowing it with the Wildlife Publication Award. This book is where I learned that concentrated phytoestrogen in subterranean clover, a food plant, functions like birth control in the California Quail during dry years. That’s still one of the coolest examples of an ecological process I know of. It also embodies the premise of Starker’s father Aldo Leopold’s land ethic, namely that “the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts.”
Our Past President, Rocky Gutiérrez, was one of Starker’s grad students. Rocky reviewed the manuscript for that book and therefore likely helped influence my trajectory. These facts remind me that as wildlife professionals we too are members of a community of interdependent parts. Understanding those parts and where we’ve come from is important for figuring out where we’re going.
Determining where the Western Section is going as an organization is largely the responsibility of the Executive Board. Fifteen years ago, the Board decided a good direction to go would be to increase member services and operations by enacting a full-time Executive Director. It was a great idea. Many tasks previously performed by volunteer Board members were reassigned to the paid Executive Director. Unfortunately, there was no solid plan or clear objectives to guide the Executive Director, and by February 2004, Section funds were depleted, the Executive Director was laid off, and the Section was near insolvency.
What happened? The lack of a solid roadmap was a significant part of the problem. As Yogi Berra said, “If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.” And, yes, we ended up someplace else. The Board spent much of the rest of the 2000s re-establishing the Section’s financial security and structural stability.
In part to avoid repeating what happened in 2004, the Section embarked on a process in 2013 to develop a strategic plan to guide the Section’s activities over the next five years. Strategic planning is a systematic process of envisioning a desired future. It involves translating that vision into broadly defined goals and objectives and a sequence of steps to achieve them. The outcome of that process was the Section’s 2014-2019 Strategic Plan.
Over the past five years, we’ve accomplished many objectives in that plan. Those include developing the Constant Contact newsletter you’re reading now and solidifying our financial standing, which is the best it’s ever been. The plan served us well, but now it’s time to update it.
In March 2018, the Board met at Grizzly Ranch in the Suisun Marsh to envision and plan our next five years. The main outcome of that meeting was that we narrowed our focus from the original plan’s five broadly defined goals into two goals. As proposed, the goals in our updated strategic plan will be to:
1. Enhance the careers of wildlife professionals, and
2. Be an active voice for science.
Having just two main goals will give us a clearer sense of purpose and will drive our engagement with the public. The other main goals were not abandoned. Instead, they became partly operationalized and partly subsumed under these two goals.
Over the coming months, Rocky Gutiérrez and I will revise the written plan in accordance with the Board’s direction. When adopted, the revised plan will provide the guidance necessary to continue offering more professional development opportunities and promoting science-based decision making in a manner that is financially responsible and sustainable.
As always, the direction of the Western Section is what you desire. We welcome your suggestions not only relative to these two main themes of the updated strategic plan but also any you might have about the future activities of the Western Section. Please feel free to contact either me or Rocky with your ideas.
Jeff Davis, President (2018)
Western Section of The Wildlife Society