A Comparative Study of the Mobilization and Mutation of Wildlife Management Strategies

Trustees Of Boston University, Boston

Investigators

Abstract

This research project will analyze how residents and officials in urban and suburban municipalities understand and respond to growing populations of white-tailed deer in their communities and how strategies for wildlife management spread among different locations. This project will enhance fundamental knowledge about the ways that the interactions between humans and deer (as well as interactions with plants, ticks, and other objects involved in human-deer relationships) shape the motivations and rationales behind different wildlife management strategies. The project will demonstrate how different management strategies circulate and evolve across different locations, with varied approaches to environmental management being adapted in different locales as humans and deer develop new relationships within cohabited spaces. Through the examination of human-nonhuman relationships and the varied local and networked forces that influence the politics of wildlife management, this project will contribute new information and insights regarding wildlife management and environmental politics in urban and suburban environments. Project findings will support the development of wildlife management strategies that are responsive to the distinct conditions of suburban and urban areas. The project also will provide research-oriented education and training opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students, and it will support the development of high school and college curricular materials that use suburban wildlife case studies to understand socioecological systems and environmental issues. As many wildlife populations recover or migrate into urban and suburban residential areas, residents and local governments face new questions related to whether and how to manage species that previously were absent or rare. Much of the research on wildlife management has been concerned with the maintenance of populations to support sustainable recreational hunting, herd health, and forest ecology, but wildlife management plans in suburban communities must respond to distinct concerns that often are related to health, safety, and property of people. The successful population recovery and growth of many animal populations within suburban and urban environments raises questions about the place of animals in human-dominated spaces and challenges traditional wildlife management approaches. The investigators will consider the shifting management strategies and policies related to white-tailed deer across municipalities in Massachusetts and New York, where deer populations have increased precipitously in many areas and many local governments have responded by creating hotly debated deer management programs that change access to public lands and hunting policies. The investigators will seek answers to three sets of questions regarding emerging deer management strategies: (1) How do concerns about deer and the practices of deer management differ across and within municipalities in Massachusetts and New York, and how have municipal rules about deer hunting changed over the past two decades? (2) How have suburban managers (broadly defined to include all actors in deer management and conflicts) come to know and be concerned about deer, and when and how do deer become overabundant and thus an object of management? (3) How have suburban managers learned about deer management, and how are management strategies from elsewhere negotiated and fit to new contexts? The investigators will address these questions using a nested, mixed-method approach that will combines surveys, geospatial analysis, in-depth interviews, archival research, and participant observation. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.