Waterfowl Harvest under Climate Change: Time-Dependent Policies to Address Non-Stationary Dynamics

This is a presentation by Michael Runge of the Eastern Ecological Science Center for the Northeast Climate Adaptation Science Center Webinar Series. To view other webinars in the series, go here: necasc.umass.e....
Description: One of the central challenges for climate adaptation is anticipating changing dynamics in our management strategies. When and how should we act early to either mitigate or take advantage of the effects of a changing system? We explored this question in the context of setting waterfowl hunting regulations, using dynamic programming to find time-dependent optimal policies that account for, and indeed, anticipate, changes in the underlying demographic parameters. In this talk, we present results from a theoretical investigation of this question and discuss ongoing work with management agencies to apply the approach to waterfowl harvest management in the U.S.
Michael Runge is a research ecologist and decision analyst with the USGS Eastern Ecological Science Center at the Patuxent Research Refuge. His work focuses on integrating tools from the field of decision analysis with expertise in wildlife science to provide natural resource management agencies with relevant decision support.