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

该研究项目将分析城市和郊区的居民和官员如何理解和应对他们社区中不断增长的白尾鹿种群，以及野生动物管理策略如何在不同地点传播。 该项目将加强有关人与鹿之间的相互作用（以及与植物，蜱虫和人鹿关系中涉及的其他物体的相互作用）塑造不同野生动物管理策略背后的动机和原理的方式的基础知识。 该项目将展示不同的管理策略如何在不同的地点循环和发展，随着人类和鹿在同居空间内发展新的关系，不同的环境管理方法将在不同的地点适应。 通过对人类与非人类的关系以及影响野生动物管理政治的各种地方和网络力量的研究，该项目将为城市和郊区环境中的野生动物管理和环境政治提供新的信息和见解。 项目的调查结果将支持制定野生动物管理战略，以适应郊区和城市地区的不同条件。 该项目还将为本科生和研究生提供以研究为导向的教育和培训机会，并将支持高中和大学课程材料的开发，这些材料使用郊区野生动物案例研究来了解社会生态系统和环境问题。随着许多野生动物种群恢复或迁移到城市和郊区居民区，居民和地方政府面临着新的问题，即是否以及如何管理以前不存在或稀有的物种。 大部分野生动物管理的研究一直关注人口的维持，以支持可持续的休闲狩猎，牛群健康和森林生态，但在郊区社区的野生动物管理计划必须响应不同的关注，往往是有关的健康，安全和人民的财产。 郊区和城市环境中许多动物种群的成功恢复和增长，引发了人们对动物在人类主导空间中的地位的质疑，并对传统的野生动物管理方法提出了挑战。 调查人员将考虑在马萨诸塞州和纽约的各市之间改变与白尾鹿有关的管理战略和政策，在这些地区，鹿的数量在许多地区急剧增加，许多地方政府通过制定激烈辩论的鹿管理计划来应对，这些计划改变了对公共土地和狩猎政策的使用。 调查人员将寻求三组问题的答案，关于新兴的鹿管理策略：（1）如何关注鹿和鹿管理的做法有何不同的城市之间和内部的马萨诸塞州和纽约，以及如何有市政规则猎鹿改变在过去的二十年？ (2)郊区管理者（广义上包括鹿管理和冲突中的所有参与者）是如何认识和关心鹿的，鹿何时以及如何变得过剩，从而成为管理的对象？ (3)郊区的管理者是如何学习鹿的管理的？来自其他地方的管理策略是如何协商和适应新的环境的？ 调查人员将使用一种嵌套的混合方法来解决这些问题，该方法将结合调查，地理空间分析，深入访谈，档案研究和参与者观察。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

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.