Proceedings of the Vertebrate Pest Conference

The author discusses the complexity of animal damage control science and its research, methods development, and control applications. It is not the point here to discourse on the individual methodology used in animal damage control research. The discussion is to point out that many researchers, wildlife managers, bureaucrats, or advocates fail to understand the situation in the science of animal damage control and its attendant problems that need resolution. Scientists should not forget that animal damage control is a science and an art. It is devoted to the recognition, analysis, and evaluation of environmental resource damage problems caused by wild and feral animals. Those problems are extremely complex and cannot be left to advocates and revelationists. Given the state-of-the art in the science of animal damage control, the only way to resolve this problem is to change the philosophy on future research, methods development, and application.