Research Guides: ENSP 400: Capstone in Environmental Science and Policy: Wildlife and Habitat Management at the University of Maryland Golf Course

Wildlife and Habitat Management at the University of Maryland Golf Course

To assist the UMD golf course in maintaining its status as a Certified Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary, by identifying core habitats on the course, identifying or developing a workable approach that can be used to document wildlife activity on the course, and to create a wildlife enhancement plan that considers proposed changes that may be made to the course in the future.

Image source: http://golf.umd.edu/scorecard

A short list of books and websites are included below as the best places to start researching this topic. For possible search terms to use in the library catalog, Google and databases, see the Search Strategies under Library Overview and the list of keywords below:

wildlife OR (specific species names)

inventory OR monitoring OR studies OR survey OR management - use singular and plural forms of terms

"golf course" OR habitat

Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program for Golf
"The Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program for Golf is an award winning education and certification program that helps golf courses protect our environment and preserve the natural heritage of the game of golf. By helping people enhance the valuable natural areas and wildlife habitats that golf courses provide, improve efficiency, and minimize potentially harmful impacts of golf course operations, the program serves an important environmental role worldwide. Audubon International has developed Standard Environmental Management Practices that are generally applicable to all golf courses. These standards form the basis for ACSP for Golf certification guidelines."
Maryland State Wildlife Action Plan
"Nationwide, State Wildlife Action Plans (SWAPs) are an important tool for successful wildlife conservation. Maryland’s SWAP describes the process used to select Maryland’s Species of Greatest Conservation Need (SGCN) and summarizes the best available information regarding the conservation status, distribution, and abundance of all major animal groups that occur in Maryland. In addition to discussing Maryland’s carefully selected SGCN, the SWAP expands upon Extinct and Extirpated species of Maryland, wildlife species in a regional context, and species’ conservation statuses. The appendices that accompany SWAP include listings of all Species of Greatest Conservation Need with rankings from various organizations and other wildlife conservation plans."

The Environmental Stewardship Toolkit by Anthony L. Williams
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 9781118208601
Publication Date: 2012
A comprehensive, one-stop guide to environmental stewardship for golf courses and grounds This highly practical guide covers the full complement of tools green industry professionals need to create a successful environmental program on golf courses and grounds. Written by a leading golf course superintendent and grounds manager, The Environmental Stewardship Toolkit offers a comprehensive analysis of all relevant issues, including environmental management, resource management, community engagement, and document management. The emphasis throughout is on the development of programs that are both sustainable and practical, combining the protection and renewal of environmental systems with a workable business plan. Regulatory issues as well as concerns of owners, customers, and the community at large are also addressed. Clear, pragmatic, up-to-the-minute coverage includes: Numerous illustrations, photos, and customizable templates and checklists that readers can use in their own projects A system for sorting projects into green, greener, and greenest in order to tailor implementation for different budgets and project complexity An in-depth look at site assessment, water quality and conservation, integrated pest management, and wildlife habitat management Guidance for developing green public relations and communications skills to promote the project in the community Field-tested procedures for building a state-of-the art documentation system for capturing, organizing, and disseminating information A must-read for golf course superintendents, irrigation specialists, turfgrass specialists, and grounds managers, The Environmental Stewardship Toolkit is also useful for landscape architects and designers, grounds owners, developers, builders, contractors, and anyone wishing to be on the cutting edge of sustainability in the green industry.
Wildlife Study Design by Michael L. Morrison; William M. Block; M. Dale Strickland; Bret A. Collier; Markus J. Peterson
Call Number: eBook & McKeldin QH541 .W45 2008
ISBN: 9780387755281
Publication Date: 2008
"Wildlife Study Design provides researchers and resource managers with a comprehensive guide to planning new studies by covering all aspects of study design, including surveys of major types of studies and variables, impact assessment, statistics, sampling techniques, inventorying and monitoring, and analysis of data. The book includes a practical, step-by-step guide to setting up a new study, minimal mathematical notation, and examples drawn from field research in order to make applied animal ecology both accessible and relevant. This new edition includes substantial new and updated content."
Monitoring Animal Populations and Their Habitats by Brenda C. McComb; Benjamin Zuckerberg; David Vesely; Christopher Jordan
Call Number: McKeldin QL83.17 .M66 2010
ISBN: 9781420070552
Publication Date: 2010
In the face of so many unprecedented changes in our environment, the pressure is on scientists to lead the way toward a more sustainable future. Written by a team of ecologists, Monitoring Animal Populations and Their Habitats: A Practitioner's Guide provides a framework that natural resource managers and researchers can use to design monitoring programs that will benefit future generations by distilling the information needed to make informed decisions. In addition, this text is valuable for undergraduate- and graduate-level courses that are focused on monitoring animal populations. With the aid of more than 90 illustrations and a four-page color insert, this book offers practical guidance for the entire monitoring process, from incorporating stakeholder input and data collection, to data management, analysis, and reporting. It establishes the basis for why, what, how, where, and when monitoring should be conducted; describes how to analyze and interpret the data; explains how to budget for monitoring efforts; and discusses how to assemble reports of use in decision-making. The book takes a multi-scaled and multi-taxa approach, focusing on monitoring vertebrate populations and upland habitats, but the recommendations and suggestions presented are applicable to a variety of monitoring programs. Lastly, the book explores the future of monitoring techniques, enabling researchers to better plan for the future of wildlife populations and their habitats. Monitoring Animal Populations and Their Habitats: A Practitioner's Guide furthers the goal of achieving a world in which biodiversity is allowed to evolve and flourish in the face of such uncertainties as climate change, invasive species proliferation, land use expansion, and population growth.

A Technical Guide for Monitoring Wildlife Habitat edited by Mary M. Rowland and Christina D. Vojta
Protocols described in this guide address habitat monitoring for terrestrial wildlife. In the past, the term wildlife was used to denote all terrestrial vertebrates, especially game birds and mammals, but later was expanded to include species of conservation concern. In more recent years, the term has broadened to encompass the full array of all biota in an ecosystem. In this technical guide, the term terrestrial wildlife includes terrestrial vertebrates and invertebrates, but managers may also find the protocols applicable for monitoring rare plants. Although population monitoring is a necessary and critical complement to habitat
monitoring (chapter 2, section 2.2.2), this guide does not address population monitoring per se because several excellent published resources exist on this topic. A Forest Service technical guide describes protocols for inventory and monitoring of populations of groups of wildlife species (Manley et al. 2006) - linked below.

Multiple species inventory and monitoring technical guide by Patricia N. Manley, United States. Forest Service.
Call Number: eBook
Publication Date: [2006]
Monitoring protocols are presented for: landbirds; raptors; small, medium and large mammals; bats; terrestrial amphibians and reptiles; vertebrates in aquatic ecosystems; plant species, and habitats. "The Multiple Species Inventory and Monitoring (MSIM) protocol is intended to serve as a consistent and efficient method for obtaining basic presence/absence data and associated habitat condition data for a large number of individual species at sites that represent a probalistic sample. It is designed to be implemented in association with Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) grid points on NFS lands."--Page 1-1.
The Greening of Golf by Brian Wilson; Brad Millington
Call Number: eBook & McKeldin GV965 .M55 2016
ISBN: 9781784993276
Publication Date: 2016
"This is the first comprehensive study of the varying impacts of golf on the environment. Based on extensive empirical research, it includes interviews with major stakeholders in the golf industry as well as members of protest groups. The authors examine golf as a sport and as a global industry, drawing on three discrete literatures - the study of sport as a global social movement, environmental sociology and the study of corporate environmentalism."