Wildlife Biology-BISC 419
Winter 2000
The goal of the course is to present and discuss general biological principles relevant to the management of wildlife populations. Wildlife will be defined broadly to include both game and non-game vertebrate, mostly endothermic, terrestrial, free-living species of commercial, recreational, or educational interest to the general public. Wildlife management, which is the art of finding compromises between competing human interests that involve wildlife, will not be covered. In lectures, general principles will be presented and elucidated using case studies taken from the literature. In the lab sessions, we will first learn about the characteristics and diversity of mammals and birds, with an emphasis on local fauna. This will be followed by a more in-depth study of avian anatomy, and depending on our luck, an expose of avian parasites. Finally, there will be a term paper (more details later) and a very interesting final exam.