Frühjahrssemester (jährlich wiederkehrende Veranstaltung)
Review major issues in wildlife conservation and management; understand the underlying ecological principles, particularly population processes; link them to principles of landscape ecology; be aware of human aspects and the distinction of scientific questions from questions rooting in society's value system; understand principles of policy formulation; become acquainted with simple modelling procedures; get some experience with field methods and field situations.
The course deals with major issues
in wildlife conservation and management with a focus on temperate
regions as far as the topics go, but with a general view on principles.
There will be an emphasis on population processes as the basis for
management, and on applying this knowledge to problems of declining,
small and harvestable populations, and population interactions such as
predation, competition and herbivory. Aspects of how society's value
system (stakeholder values, beliefs, laws) shape management goals and
how valuation and science interact in policy formulation, will also be
addressed. Conservation-oriented topics will be illustrated mainly with
amphibian and reptile examples.
The course consists of lectures
with seminar-type discussion parts, preceded by home reading of
pertinent literature, lab exercises (using spreadsheets Excel or Open
Office Calc; some laptops required), and a two-days field trip.