Wildlife in the cloud: a new approach for engaging stakeholders in wildlife management.
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.
Grimsö Wildlife Research Station, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, 73091, Riddarhyttan, Sweden. guillaume.chapron@slu.se.
Guillaume
G
Chapron
D000818:Animals; D000835:Animals, Wild / Q000502:physiology*; D000067917:Cloud Computing; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources / Q000379:methods*; D003670:Deer / Q000502:physiology*; D013548:Sweden
Bear; Cloud-computing; Moose; Population models; Wildlife management; Wolf