Vital Signs Monitoring: Where Are We

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Vital Signs MonitoringWhere Are We? Where Do
We Go From Here?

• Gary E. Davis, Visiting Chief Scientist
• National Park Service
• Washington, DC

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Today

• Describe how far weve come (context)
• Discuss importance of science and monitoring to
  NPS
• Explore opportunities for where we go from here

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My First Connections with Nature
Fun Food
Hunt Gather
I Like to Fish
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A Personal Odyssey of Some 40 Years
Park Ranger
Why Don't Parks Protect Fish?
Explore high mountain lakes and streams
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Virgin Islands National Park
Park Ranger Aquanaut
If They Knew What I Did About Parks, Theyd Agree
With Me.
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Biscayne National Park, FL
Marine Biologist
Parks As Refugia
Sustainable Fisheries?
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Dry Tortugas National Park, FL
Research Biologist
Long-term Data Sets
Ecological Importance of Rare, Extreme, Natural
Events
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Everglades National Park, FL
Research Director
Build NPS Research Capacity
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Channel Islands National Park, CA
Research Scientist
Value of Teamwork and Partnerships
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Headquarters, Washington, DC
Science Advisor
Cheer Leader
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A Personal Odyssey 1964-2005
Lassen Volcanic NP
Dry Tortugas NP
1960s
Virgin Islands NP
1970s
Channel Islands NP
Biscayne NP
Everglades NP
1980s-90s
2000s
WASO
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Early National Park Managers
Relied on Beliefs
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Fires were put out predators killed to
save the parks
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Modern Ecological Knowledge Reveals New
Understanding

• Rare, extreme natural events shape ecosystems,
  they do not destroy them
• Predators mediate competition and structure
  ecosystems, they are essential to sustain
  biodiversity
• Human activities now dominate earths ecosystems

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Ecology Is In The 17th Century Relative To
Medicine
When William Harvey showed that the heart was a
pump and that its function was to pump blood to
the body through a series of circles-the
circulatory system
William Harvey, 1628
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National Park Service Mission
Promote and regulate the use of ...national
parks to conserve the scenery and the natural
and historic objects and wild life therein and
to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such
manner and by such means as will leave them
unimpaired for the enjoyment of future
generations.
U. S. Congress, 1916
wild life biodiversity
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Several Attempts to Introduce Science as a
Guiding Principle

• Preserving Nature in the National Parks
• A History
• Richard West Sellars, 1997
• Yale University Press

1929-1936George Wright, et al. 1963Leopold et
al. Robbins, et al. 1977-199210 Reviews of NPS
Science
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Natural Resource Challenge

• How to add Science to the guiding principles of
  NPS stewardship
• National Leadership Council recognized a need to
  change agency culture in 1997
• Struggled with how to do itcommittee?
• Now exploring a functional approach with cultural
  change as a byproduct
• You are the heart and soul of this exploration

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Growth of NPS Science During My Career 1964-2004
Scientists
(EVER only)
1964
1974
1984
1994
2004
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Form Follows Function

• KNOW understand resource conditions
• RESTORE impaired ecosystems
• PROTECT resources ecosystems, and mitigate
  threats
• CONNECT people to parks

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What Do Parks Contain?

• First surveys, inventories, begun by George
  Wright in 1920s-1930s
• Never completedIBP 1960s, RBI 1970s,
• Natural Resource Challenge providing first
  limited inventoriesscience for parks
• All Taxa Biological Inventory _at_ Great Smokey
  Mountains NPparks for science

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Science-based Inventories Monitoring Programs
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Vital Signs Key to Knowledge and Cost-Effective
Stewardship

• Knowledge of resource conditions helps set goals,
  determine normal conditions evaluate
  performance of restoration and protection
• Understanding how resources interact helps
  predict ecosystem behavior and project
  consequences of intervention or lack of action
• Knowledge helps connect people to parks

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Monitoring Park Vital Signs Adds Value

• Superintendents with monitoring programs have
  more information and better knowledge about their
  parks than did their predecessors, therefore
• Those Superintendents can preserve their parks
  BETTER, FASTER, and CHEAPER
• So what limits our capacity to preserve parks now
  and in the future?

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Ask The Right Questions

• You would be surprised at the number of years it
  took me to see clearly what some of the problems
  were which had to be solvedlooking back, I think
  it was more difficult to see what the problems
  were than to solve them. Charles Darwin

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Where are we going? Whats on the horizon? Are we
ready?

• Evolution of environmental ethics
• Convergence of species and placed-based
  conservation
• Adaptive management science
• Generational amnesia

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Evolution of Environmental Ethics (Man Nature)
Ecological-Biotic (21st Century?)
Democratic-Utilitarian Conservation (20th
Century)
Romantic-Transcendental Preservation (19th
Century)
Puritan-Frontier Development (18th Century)
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Puritan-Frontier Development Ethic

• Humans dominate system
• Humans more important than ecosystems
• Nature is wild and must be conquered
• Serial depletion strategy of hunter-gathers

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Romantic-Transcendental Preservation Ethic

• Ecosystems have intrinsic values independent of
  humans
• Humans not part of ecosystems, considered
  unnatural contamination
• Foundation of modern wilderness concepts
• For people who dont share the intrinsic value,
  this ethic has no value

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Democratic-Utilitarian Conservation Ethic

• Environment considered a commodity to support
  human activities
• Economic self-interests and efficient
  exploitation can be served with sufficient
  knowledge of nature and management
• Maximum sustained yield is a common goal

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Ecological-Biotic Ethic-Leopold

• Humans are integral parts of ecosystems, not
  separate and apart
• Some areas remain in natural state
• Healthy ecosystemdefined as capacity for
  self-renewal

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A Land Ethic

• A thing is right when it tends to preserve the
  integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic
  community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.
• Aldo Leopold, 1949
• A Sand County Almanac

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Rosetta Stone I
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Rosetta Stone II
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Rosetta Stone III
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Rosetta Stone IV
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Rosetta Stone V
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You Are Pioneers

• Scientists are explorers, inventors, and
  adventurers
• Organizational experiment, N32
• Flexible, yet consistent across the system
• Finesse the monitoring protocol design is
  research question with USGS partners
• Opportunity to vastly improve place-based
  conservation

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NPS Science Careers

• A career consists of only a hand-full of major
  accomplishments
• Each may have several smaller related components
• Choose wiselydont just chase the money design
  your path
• Luck is the convergence of preparation and
  opportunity

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Make Vital Signs Monitoring One of Your Career
Goals

• The skills and knowledge you develop and acquire
  will be valuable
• It will be a good foundation or capstone for your
  career
• It will provide long-term perspective and context
  for your other contributions
• Youll meet interesting people with similar
  proclivities
• Its fun

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there is nothing more difficultthan to
initiate a new order of things.

• Niccolo Machiavelli, 1525