Darrel et al.
Baseline shift is always problem in wildlife management, as it facilitates
strategies and options that in a historical context seem unthinkable (i.e.
still allowing hunting of species with only 2% of its historical population
extant).
The upside, if you want to call it that, is that baseline shift allows for
misleading yet publicly validating management "victories." If ODFW and other
upland game managers can somehow revive the Greater Sage-Grouse population to
3% of their historic levels, they can claim that a 50% increase in the
population size has been achieved. This sounds a whole lot more promising than,
"Yahoo, we've restored the population back to 3% of its historic level."
Dave IronsPortland, OR
