Wildlife in the cloud: a new approach for engaging stakeholders in wildlife management

Abstract

Research in wildlife management increasingly relies on quantitative population models. However, a remaining challenge is to have end-users, who are often alienated by mathematics, benefiting from this research. I propose a new approach, 'wildlife in the cloud,' to enable active learning by practitioners from cloud-based ecological models whose complexity remains invisible to the user. I argue that this concept carries the potential to overcome limitations of desktop-based software and allows new understandings of human-wildlife systems. This concept is illustrated by presenting an online decision-support tool for moose management in areas with predators in Sweden. The tool takes the form of a user-friendly cloud-app through which users can compare the effects of alternative management decisions, and may feed into adjustment of their hunting strategy. I explain how the dynamic nature of cloud-apps opens the door to different ways of learning, informed by ecological models that can benefit both users and researchers.

Keywords: Bear; Cloud-computing; Moose; Population models; Wildlife management; Wolf.

Fig. 1

A male moose in one of Sweden’s hunting districts. Moose hunting is an important source of revenue and meat supply to landowners and has also a high recreational value. Photo by Johan Månsson

Fig. 2

Moose management cloud-app that serves as an interface to a population model running on a distant server. The left panel allows the user to set parameters through intuitive controls and the right panel instantaneously provides meaningful information from simulation results