Applied Animal Ecology, WEC-20803

Applied animal ecology is a subfield within ecology that considers the application of the science of animal ecology to management questions. The purpose of the course Applied Animal Ecology is to provide students with the theoretical background underlying wildlife population management.

The question central to this course is how to maintain, increase, or decrease the size of wildlife populations. We will first give students the theoretical aspects of animal ecology on which common practices in wildlife population management are based. We put emphasis on how the growth of wildlife populations is regulated by food availability, and is negatively impacted by predators and diseases.

Furthermore, we discuss the anthropogenic impact of harvesting and hunting. Lastly, we consider the types and effectiveness of the different measures of population size increases and reductions that a wildlife manager has at hand.

To place the theory into perspective, we provide case studies on terrestrial animals of the European continent. At the end of the course, students will write a wildlife population management plan. In this plan, the theory dealt with in the first weeks should be applied to tackle a particular wildlife management problem.