8149

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 8149
• Author: Phenicie, C. K. and J. R. Lyons.
• Title: Tactical Planning in Fish and Wildlife Management and Research.
• USFW Year: 1973.
• Copyright Material: NO

clear idea of who would use the results, how they would be used or if they
would be used. We can no longer afford the luxury of doing research without
answering those questions before we start" (Solman, 1970).

In like manner, we cannot afford management practices unless they are
needed and effective. Unless funded directly by the user, general put-and-
take pheasant stocking, maintenance stocking of warmwater fish, as well as
wetland acquisition without nesting habitat, winter feeding of game, and carp
trapping are popular treatments of questionable financial benefit. Practices
"skillfully fitted together to produce a large net improvement" (Sherwin &
Isenson, 1967) is management. If these practices are to fit and thereby
produce, they must be both needed and effective.

We will consider one problem selected to satisfy a need, phrase the
problem properly and then develop a tactical plan to solve it. This section
deals with precise problem identification.

When a problem is identified, the circumstances, personalities, condi-
tions and other matters that relate to it must be understood. A statement of
the problem must be developed that communicates precisely its identity,
nature, and depth. This problem statement is then transposed carefully to an
objective without compromise of the identity, nature, and depth of the problem
it reflects. This is a crucial step so a special caution is warranted.
Unless the problem statement and the basic objective generated by it are on
target, the entire plan derived subsequently will not solve the basic problem.

This leads to step number one in step-down planning: (1) From the facts
at hand establish one simply stated, single purpose, primary objective that
communicates the identity, nature, and depth of the problem.

Consider the example which will be used as the basis for developing the
step-down plan displayed in the centerfold. The overall problem is to provide
northern pike recruitment in lakes where natural reproduction is inadequate or
where it has been reduced by shore development and marsh drainage. An
analysis reveals three avenues of solution: Stock hatchery-reared fish,
transfer fish obtained through rescue operations from winter-kill lakes, or
use production from marshes constructed on or near lakes for pike spawning.
In the State fish and game department for which you work the first two of
these have been and are being done without precise knowledge of effects or
benefits. Nevertheless, both programs have public support and are financed
by legislative appropriations.

The fish and game commission favors acqulrlng data to evaluate all three
alternatives. but the climate is not immediately favorable for seeking funds
to study the two methods now used. The commission, therefore, voted to
initiate a study to evaluate the third alternative. You were chosen by the
chief of fisheries to determine the efficacy of artificial spawning marshes.
You are to develop a plan which, if adopted and followed, will provide the
department and commission with information needed for policy decisions.

These are the facts at hand. In accordance with rule one of step-down
planning, what is the primary objective? We have phrased the following

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