Natural Resources and Conservation Commons^™

The Economic Impacts Of Blackbird (Icteridae) Damage To Sunflower In The Usa, Karina Ernst, Julie Elser, George Linz, Hans Kandel, Jason Holderieath, Samantha Degroot, Steven Shwiff, Stephanie Shwiff

Jason Holderieath

BACKGROUND: Blackbird (Icteridae) damage to ripening sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) has been a persistent economic issue in the USA for the last five decades. To quantify losses, we surveyed blackbird damage from 2001 to 2013 (excluding 2004) to physiologically mature sunflower in eight states: North Dakota, South Dakota, Texas, Nebraska, Minnesota, Colorado, Kansas, and Vermont.

RESULTS:We pooled data gathered during the most recent 5 years (2009 to 2013) of the survey and found losses averaged $US2.5 million and $US11.3 million for confectionery and oilseed hybrids, respectively. Three states, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Nebraska, had sufficient acreage and bird damage …

The Relationship Of Animal Protection Interests To Animal Damage Management: Historic Paths, Contemporary Concerns And The Uncertain Future, John Hadidian

John Hadidian, PhD

More than a decade ago Schmidt (1989) called for consideration of animal welfare to become a "firstorder" decision rule in wildlife management concerns, including animal damage control. Although there has been movement in that direction, this clearly has not yet come to pass. This paper takes a brief look at the interests we call animal damage management, animal welfare and protection, animal rights, and environmentalism in order to speculate about their shared concerns and the uncertain future before them. Since animal damage and the management of that damage cannot be abstracted from the environmental context in which they occur, this …

Automated Bioacoustics: Methods In Ecology And Conservation And Their Potential For Animal Welfare Monitoring, Michael P. Mcloughlin, Rebecca Stewart, Alan G. Mcelligott

Alan G. McElligott, PhD

Vocalizations carry emotional, physiological and individual information. This suggests that they may serve as potentially useful indicators for inferring animal welfare. At the same time, automated methods for analysing and classifying sound have developed rapidly, particularly in the fields of ecology, conservation and sound scene classification. These methods are already used to automatically classify animal vocalizations, for example, in identifying animal species and estimating numbers of individuals. Despite this potential, they have not yet found widespread application in animal welfare monitoring. In this review, we first discuss current trends in sound analysis for ecology, conservation and sound classification. Following this, …