The Animal Research Institute : celebrating 100 years

Societal pressure for change has resulted in transformation of the state fish and wildlife management institution (Institution i.e., the people, processes and rules, as well as the norms, values and behaviors associated with state fish and wildlife management) (Jacobson and Decker 2006). Part of this change is the de-institutionalization of the traditional funding mechanism for state fish and wildlife agencies (SFWA). The traditional funding mechanism for SFWAs has been revenue from hunting and fishing license sales and federal excise taxes (Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration and Dingell-Johnson Sport Fish Restoration funds). In the last 30 years, the Institution has recognized the need to reform the traditional funding model (Heberlein 1991, Hamilton 1992, Franklin and Reis 1996, Bies 2005) due to difficulties in sustaining existing activities as well as expanding into new program areas (Hamilton 1992, Anderson and Loomis 2006). Specifically, this model reinforces historical dependencies between hunters and anglers and the organizations (i.e., state fish and wildlife agencies) that are funded by them. It has been suggested that funding of state management has "blurred the essential distinction between public interest and special interest and inevitably eroded both scientific credibility and public trust" (Gill 1996: 63). Hamilton (1992) asserts that SFWAs' dependency on consumptive user groups to fund wildlife conservation and management leaves agencies in vulnerable positions. Further, the current funding paradigm, according to Anderson and Loomis (2006), perpetuates a client (i.e., hunters and anglers) versus stakeholder (i.e., all interested citizens) approach to fish and wildlife management (Hamilton 1992). SFWAs will need to develop alternative funding mechanisms to sustain their capacity to provide diverse conservation and management services that benefit consumptive and nonconsumptive users alike. Hamilton (1992) notes that it is not likely that SFWAs will become "extinct," but that their legitimacy with new as well as traditional stakeholders may be compromised. One way that SFWAs can maintain legitimacy with a changing society is by increasing their efforts to be responsive to the needs of a diversity of stakeholders interested in fish and wildlife (Decker and Chase 1997). As traditional funding for state fish and wildlife management becomes increasingly inadequate (e.g., because of declining hunter and angler numbers and corresponding license revenues in some states, increasing demands and subsequent costs of fish and wildlife management), most states have sought alternative funding (e.g., state general funds, tax check-offs, lottery funds) (Hamilton 1992). These new revenue sources present challenges to the Institution (Jacobson et al. 2007). In addition to the creation or expansion of programs, agencies using new and general funding sources will likely need to be more accountable to a larger and more diverse constituency. It will be incumbent on the Institution to overcome an historical dependency on funds derived from hunting and trapping without alienating traditional constituencies. Putnam (1993: 179) notes that tensions emerge as institutions "bearing the imprint of the past" try to address current and future problems. The resource dependency perspective posits that organizations become dependent on those entities that have control over critical resources, particularly when options for obtaining those resources are limited (Johnson 1995). Pfeffer and Salancik (2003: 3) note that "problems arise not merely because organizations are dependent on their environments, but because these environment are not dependable." When environments change, organizations are forced to adapt or fail to survive. Diversification is one strategy used by organizations 108  Workshop: Fish and Wildlife Conservation and Management in the 21st Century

Canadian veterinary journal, 2017

Medicine, beginning a new era in the College's approach to veterinary medical education, research and health care. The creation of the Department was the product of wider changes in the nature of livestock agriculture, the growing importance of population level health management in veterinary practice in Canada and elsewhere, and strong support from within the College. Population level preventive medicine became increasingly important over the second half of the 20th century as the intensification of livestock production combined with tightening profit margins for producers made the prevention of disease and increased productivity vital to the success of livestock agriculture. Outbreaks of new production limiting diseases among livestock populations can wreak havoc on agricultural economies and cause substantial financial losses for producers. Within OVC a number of influential faculty members, including Drs. Wayne Martin, Bob Curtis, Alan Meek, Bob Friendship, Ken Leslie, Bill Mitchell, and Dean Ole Nielsen helped lay the foundation for, and/or were the driving forces behind the creation of the Department. Their work helped put OVC in a leadership position in terms of the growth of population medicine in North America. Several of these faculty members were interviewed and their thoughts have been incorporated into this paper. As a consequence of these developments OVC reconsidered its approach to livestock animal medicine and created the Department of Population Medicine to systematically teach and perform research and extension work in farm animal health management and welfare, epidemiology, public health, food protection, and theriogenology. The intensification of livestock production, especially from the 1960s onwards, meant that food animal veterinarians needed to reorient their practices to serve the new focus on herd health, which emphasized preventive medicine as an effective response to tight profit margins for producers. Producers were forced to increase productivity to keep pace with the increasing costs of agricultural production, as the intensification of agriculture led to increased costs of farm machinery and land, due in part also to rapid urbanization and the spread of human populations over agricultural lands in places such as Ontario. Such tight profit margins meant that veterinarians needed to provide services that would be economically beneficial to producers as they changed their focus from individual animals to the herd as a whole (1). Many veterinarians recognized the financial constraints facing large-scale livestock producers and throughout the 1960s and 1970s began to advocate herd health management as a way to provide cost-effective veterinary services to livestock producers. Beginning in the early 1960s, the Ontario Veterinary College, with the assistance of the Livestock Branch of the Ontario Department of Agriculture, began a Specific Pathogen-Free (SPF) pig program to "create a nucleus of high quality purebred certified herds from which other secondary herds can be established easily and economically" (2).These pigs were seen as potentially able to "break the cycle of infection at the moment of birth." While there were high start-up costs, long-term savings would accrue from decreased drug costs and mortality rates compared to conventional herds (3). Specific Pathogen-Free researcher M.K. Abelseth noted that "the practicing veterinarian should be closely associated with the SPF programme" (4). Veterinarians provided farmers with advice on topics such as sanitation and nutrition, and by 1964 it was reported that veterinarians with SPF herd clients "have cooperated to the fullest extent in endeavoring to keep the herd health status at a high level" (3). In 1974 Dr. O.M. Radostits (a faculty member at the OVC in the early 1960s before moving to the Western College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Saskatchewan in 1964) noted that the modern livestock producer is "business oriented and applies the principles of agricultural economics to his everyday task of allocating resources to achieve optimum returns." He argued that the high cost of raising stock such as cattle and pigs meant that "progressive" producers would increasingly demand high quality herd health services from their veterinarians. In addition, Canadian and American veterinary colleges, which traditionally focused on individual animals, would need to teach herd level medicine to meet this new demand (5). A mid-1970s report in Ontario recommended a similar approach. William A.

In Bioethics, 4th edition, vol. 1, ed. Bruce Jennings. Macmillan Reference USA, 2014

Science, 2009

Inadequate funding threatens vital agricultural and biomedical research with farm animals.

Zoo Biology, 2008

Scientific study within contemporary zoos and aquariums has developed ad hoc as an extremely broad, academically oriented mixture of basic and applied research spanning a wide array of concepts and disciplines. Several papers have considered prioritization of present or future research efforts within disciplines, but only a few have touched on prioritization across institutions, disciplines, and species. This lack of prioritization across institutions and disciplines is surprising given the growing interdependence of zoos and aquariums to maintain populations through exchange of animals, standardization of animal care procedures, and maintenance of selfsustaining populations. The purpose of this paper is to explore prioritization of scientific research, and support of that prioritized research, within and among the professionally managed zoo and aquarium members of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA).