The Wildlife SocieTy
Society NewS
New Society Pages
In response to requests from readers and TWS members, The
Wildlife Professional is expanding its coverage of Society news
and giving the Society Page section a new look. With this issue,
we’ll begin publishing two pages of general Society news, with
one additional page of news exclusively about Student Chapters, and one page on the work of our many Working Groups.
Please help us make these pages as dynamic as possible by
sending story ideas and suggestions to editor@wildlife.org.
We look forward to hearing from—and writing about—you.
electronic Voting Available
If you’d like to avoid
the time-consuming
and costly process of
sending out paper ballots for your subunit
elections, TWS can offer a secure alternative: electronic
voting. If given about a month’s notice prior to an election,
our IT staff—Ruxandra Giura and Michael Levin—can create
safe, secure online ballots listing your candidates and ballot
questions. Subunits with a majority of members that belong
to TWS can obtain this service free of charge. (Others will be
considered case by case, depending on the number of ballots
needed.) It’s important to note that each subunit must have
bylaws that authorize electronic voting to ensure that election
results will be considered valid. This process not only reduces
paperwork and expense, but can increase voting participation
at the click of a mouse.
New editor for JwM
Frank Thompson, Ph.D. (left), has been selected to be the next editor-in-chief of The
Journal of Wildlife Management (JWM).
He will take over the responsibilities of
the current editor, Michael Chamberlain,
in July. “I feel very fortunate to have had
the career I’ve had to date and feel obligated to provide some type of service to my
courtesy of frank Thompson
profession,” says Thompson. “This op-
portunity seems an ideal way for me to do
that.” Thompson is project leader at the USDA Forest Service
Northern Research Station in Columbia, Missouri, and also
serves as a cooperative associate professor in the University
of Missouri’s School of Natural Resources. His research focuses
on population ecology and habitat selection of birds in forest
ecosystems. At JWM, Thompson hopes to include articles that
cover the broad spectrum of interest and knowledge in wildlife
science. “This spans practical on-the-ground management prac-
tices to advanced applications of mathematics,” he says. “I don’t
want the journal to shy away from either end of that spectrum.”
Award-winning words
Aldo Leopold Award winner James E. Miller gave a heartfelt
speech during the Annual Conference in Miami. A veteran
of the wildlife profession for more than 45 years and a past
president of TWS, Miller spoke about the history of wildlife
management and the role we all play in helping to “ensure that
wild places and wild things can be sustained for future generations.” TWS recognizes that the speeches given by Aldo Leopold
Award winners each year convey the wisdom of some of the finest members of our profession. To share these words with our
membership, The Wildlife Professional will print a condensed
version of the speeches in the first issue of every year (see page
64), and run full text of the speeches online. We are also compiling an online archive of past Aldo Leopold Award speeches,
which you will be able to view at www.wildlife.org.
Resolving conservation conflicts
The Human-Wildlife Conflict Collaboration will offer two of
its renowned Conservation and Conflict Experiential Trainings
this year in Washington, D.C. The three-day courses—held June
1-3 and September 9-11—teach wildlife professionals to analyze
and reconcile conflicts that arise between people about wildlife.
Registration deadlines are one month in advance of the trainings
and space is limited, so register early. In addition to these trainings, organizations can request customized courses to meet their
specific needs. For information about registration and fees, visit
www.humanwildlifeconflict.org.
twS Gets youtube channel
The Wildlife Society applied for and received the right to its own
channel on the video-streaming website You Tube.com. TWS can
now broadcast its own wildlife-related videos on the channel.
Members who subscribe to this new, free service will receive notifications when new content is added. Keep your eye out for updates.
Last call for Papers and Posters
March 20, 2009 is the deadline for submitting papers and posters to the 16th Annual Conference in Monterey. TWS invites
submissions on a wide range of topics including wildlife science,
management, conservation, education, and policy. For details
about submissions, visit www.abstractsonline.com/submit. If
you have questions about the conference program, contact Tricia
Fry at tricia@wildlife.org.
