Synopsis
In a previous book: American Plains Bison: Rewilding An Icon, Bailey pondered the issue of domestic vs. wild bison. He concludes wildness is more than a mere romantic notion, and provides a definition of wildness based on population genetics and evolutionary biology. Degree of wildness depends upon the preponderance of natural selection, a criterion that is measurable and operational in the practice of wildlife management. Bailey contends wildness may be the most ignored characteristic of wildlife, unrecognized in most wildlife law, and little considered in much management. With an emphasis on large mammals, he notes twelve categories of common management practices that weaken or replace natural selection. Bailey intends to communicate an academic topic to most owners of American wildlife, anyone who has had one good biology class. He discusses the sources of genetic diversity in wildlife populations and the selective and random processes that may alter population genetics. He then illustrates these interactions, noting how natural selection for wildness may be replaced or weakened, especially in populations that are not large or do not exist in large, diverse habitats. Bailey concludes with a plea for more and better examples of wildness amongst the increasingly domesticated environments of North America. Jim Bailey was professor of wildlife biology at Colorado State University for 20 years. His first book was Principles of Wildlife Management. His recent book on American Plains Bison led to a reassessment of wildlife management's influences upon wildness in large mammals, ideas explored more fully in The Essence of Wildness.
About the Author
James (Jim) Bailey grew up in Chicago where library books created an interest in a career-path toward forestry. However, while completing a BSc degree (1956) in forestry at Michigan College of Mining and Technology (now Michigan Tech University), he discovered the profession of wildlife management. This led to graduate work in forest-zoology at the State University of New York, College of Forestry at Syracuse University. For his MSc degree (1958) he studied wildlife use of conifer plantations in upstate New York, continuing graduate work at the University of Michigan. Following army service, Jim returned to the College of Forestry at Syracuse during 1962-64. His PhD thesis was written in absentia and the degree awarded in 1966. Bailey served as instructor in wildlife management at the University of Montana, 1968-69, and landed an instructorship at Colorado State University in 1969. At Colorado State, he taught Principles of Wildlife Management, Wildlife Nutrition, Big Game Management, and Population Dynamics, among other courses. He was senior editor, assembling the book, Readings in Wildlife Conservation for The Wildlife Society in 1974, and published Principles of Wildlife Management with John Wiley & Sons in 1984. Bailey retired from Colorado State as a full professor in 1990. Exchanging the ivory tower for the “real world”, Jim served as assistant director of the Conservation Services Division in the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish during 1993-98. He oversaw state programs for endangered species, habitat conservation and watchable wildlife. In retirement, Jim has remained active with wildlife conservation issues, first in Santa Fe and now in Montana. An interest in bison produced the book: American Plains Bison: Rewilding an Icon in 2013. Over the years, he has written or contributed to over 70 publications in wildlife biology and management – in peer-reviewed and other media. In his final years, he hopes to leave a legacy through commentaries and essays on his website jamesabailey.com Wildlife Management, We Can Do Better.
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