ABSTRACT
Ecological Theory and Wildlife Science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341 General Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341
Ecological Concepts and the Wildlife Science Horizon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342 Behavioral Ecology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342 Population and Community Ecology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342 Landscape Ecology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344
Ecosystem Management and the Economics of Ecology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345 Sustainable Use and Conservation: The New Order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350
Historical perspectives of the wildlife conservation movement reveal the complex interplay between evolving states of knowledge and evolving societal values and expectations. From its first awakening in the early-to-mid 1800s, and through the formative years of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the movement to safeguard North American wildlife reflected the great concerns for population and species depletions that lay strewn in the wake of unbridled slaughter and industrial expansion. Emergent policies and paradigms confronted this excess with a focus on protection and recovery, wilderness set-asides, forestry reform, and game laws. The underpinnings of natural history served these initiatives reasonably well, until moderate successes in recovering some populations but persistent declines in others revealed the vacancy between knowledge and applied policy (Trefethen 1975).
