No abstract

In a preliminary analysis of listing decisions under Canada's Species at Risk Act (SARA), Mooers et al. (2007)demonstrated an apparent bias against marine and northern species. As a follow-up, we expanded the set of potential explanatory variables, including information on jurisdictional and administrative elements of the listing process, and considered an additional 16 species recommended for listing by SARA's scientific advisory committee as of 15 August 2006. Logistic model selection based on Akaike differences suggested that species were less likely to be listed if they were harvested or had commercial or subsistence harvesting as an explicitly identified threat; had Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) as a responsible authority (RA); were located in Canada's north generally, and especially in Nunavut; or were found mostly or entirely within Canada. Subsequent model validation with an independent set of 50 species for which a listing decision was handed down in December 2007 showed an overall misclassification rate of <0.10, indicating reasonable predictive power. In light of these results, we recommend that RAs under SARA adopt a two-track listing approach to address problems of delays arising from extended consultations and the inconsistent use by the RAs of socioeconomic analysis; consider revising SARA so that socioeconomic analysis occurs during decisions about protecting species and their habitats rather than at the listing stage; and maintain an integrated database with information on species' biology, threats, and agency actions to enable future evaluation of SARA's impact.

No abstract

Although wildlife management agencies commonly employ sex‐selective harvests to regulate white‐tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) populations, few studies have documented the effectiveness of these harvests. Using data from 1980 to 1997 for the Algonquin Highlands region of Ontario, Canada, we assessed (1) the ability of wildlife managers to control the size of the antlerless harvest using sex‐selective permits, and (2) the ability of antlerless harvest to control changes in deer density. Antlerless harvest was related only to the number of permits issued when <40% of hunters had antlerless permits; above this threshold, kill was related only to hunter numbers, not the number of antlerless permits. Factors such as deer encounter rates and hunter selectivity or behavior also may influence the size of the kill. Historically, antlerless kill showed little detectable effect on deer population density, which appears to be regulated primarily by density‐dependent factors. This implies that antlerless kill historically occurred at levels too low to depress populations, or that existing data are simply too noisy to allow detection of a kill effect. Either way, the current harvest management system appears to have little ability to regulate deer populations in Ontario. Declining hunter participation and/or increasing deer populations will only decrease the effectiveness of the current sport harvest for management, and wildlife managers may need to look to other means of managing the population.