Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting: Business Meeting Business meeting called to order at 8:10 a.m. November 3, 2004. The first order of business was to accept the minutes from the 2003 WCC-95 meeting. They were unanimously accepted as written. Date and Location of the 2005 meeting: The date and location for the 2005 WCC-95 meeting was determined to be November 8-10, 2005 and will be held at the Circus Circus Hotel in Reno, Nevada. The meeting will start at 1:00 p.m. on November 8, 2005 and end at 12:00 p.m. on November 10, 2005. Budget report John Eisemann provided the budget report because John OBrien was not available. Because of the low number of participants at the meeting, the registration fee for this year was increased to $45.00. Balance from 2003 meeting $ 396.09 Income from the 2004 meeting (19 people @ $45 each) 855.00 Circus Circus Hotel Expenses for the 2004 meeting <1423.33> Reimbursement from the VPC* 328.38 TOTAL $ 156.14 * John OBrien reserved the meeting room at Circus Circus for three days: Tuesday, November 2, 2004; Wednesday, November 3, 2004; and Thursday, November 4, 2004. The WCC-95 meeting did not begin until 1:00 p.m. on November 2. The Verterbrate Pest Council met in the Circus Circus facilities during the morning of November 2 and subsequently reimbursed the WCC-95 $328.38 for the use of the room. Attendance At the beginning of the meeting 22 people were in attendance. Seventeen people remained throughout the entire meeting. This is down significantly from the previous five or more years. A discussion occurred focusing on how to increase attendance. The following suggestions were offered: announce the meeting and general program earlier in the year; solicit more active participation from the Berryman Institute (invite Dr. Michael Conover to participate in the meeting next year); announce the meeting in the following venues (NWCO Newsletter, The Probe, Newsletters of local and regional chapters and Wildlife Damage Management Working Group of the Wildlife Society, contact university chapters of the Wildlife Society and Society for Range Management); and inform University Cooperative Research Units of the meeting Officer Elections Nominations  Jeanette OHare and Are Berentsen  Are declined nomination due to uncertainty about being able to attend meetings for the next three consecutive years Election - Jeanette OHare was unanimously elected by verbal vote. Review of last years action items 1. Reauthorization of WCC-95 Charter - Thanks to Paul Nash and Terry Salmon, the WCC-95 charter has been officially reauthorized. David Thawley is the groups advisor. Each yearly meeting must be officially authorized through David Thawley. This allows extension agents to receive travel funds to attend the meeting. 2. Zinc phosphide use survey - No one was sure if this had been completed. Kathy Fagerstone and Judy Thompson were not in attendance to make their report. John Eisemann will follow up with Kathy Fagerstone. 3. Internet based Collaborative Tools. Terry Salmon set this service up shortly up after the 2004 meeting. (http://collaborate.ucanr.org) ACTION ITEMS FOR FY05 1) A top priority for next year is to increase the participation at the 2005 meeting. Some of suggestions for this include: a. Update the Collaborative Tools mailing list by adding contact information for people attending previous meetings. b. Obtain university based agricultural extension office contact information from Dr. Bruce Menzel (CSREES). This information will be used to expand the audience contacted for the next meeting. c. When the 2005 meeting is announced, include a better description of the agenda and presentation topics. Also, encourage student participation and presentations. Apply to the NRI for student travel funds. d. Reduce the registration fee for students to $20.00. This suggestion was put forth for a formal vote by Robert Timm. It passed unanimously. 2) Follow up with Kathleen Fagerstone about the status of the zinc phosphide survey.

The 2004 WCC-95 meeting did not have a particular emphasis as has occurred at past meetings. Past meetings were structured so that particular topics were covered in some detail. Past topics included the potential Federal T&E listing of the prairie dog, media outreach activities, and wildlife disease. Participant comments from the past meetings emphasized the lack of time they felt the meeting provided for one-to-one or small group interaction. The meeting this year reduced the emphasis on formal presentations and provided significantly more discussion time. The result was more discussions of potential collaboration and/or assistance on current issues faces by participants. One area of emphasis pertained to the reissue of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agencys Potential Risks of Nine Rodenticides to Birds and Nontarget Mammals: A Comparative Approach. A presentation was made concerning the contents of the document and methods used to assess ecological risk and the potential impact the U. S. EPAs reregistration efforts could have on agricultural uses of rodenticides. Ideas were discussed as to how to comment most effectively on the EPA document. One focus of the business meeting was increasing numbers of participants at the 2005 meeting. It was decided that the topic for the 2005 meeting would be the Human Dimensions of Wildlife Damage Management. It was felt by all participants that discussions on how to foster positive public sentiment towards wildlife damage management are critical in the face of growing anti wildlife management attitudes. It was thought that a good approach for the next meeting would be to invite Michael Conover (Berryman Institute) to be a guest speaker. It was also felt that including the Berryman Institute in the meeting we may be able to draw more students to the meeting. This would address a second goal of including younger participants in the WCC-95 meetings. To encourage student participation we agreed to lower the student registration fee and announce the meeting at more universities and university based extension offices. Dr. Steven Vantassel from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln introduced himself at the meeting as the new webmaster for the primary internet outlet for wildlife damage management, The Internet Center for Wildlife Damage Management (http://wildlifedamage.unl.edu). As a group, meeting participants provided critiques and suggestions for improving the website appearance and content. The group agreed to assist with upgrading the content of the website. Formal updates or project reports were provided by participants on 17 topics at the meeting. In addition, time was spent where each participant provided a brief summary of there current research or outreach activities and solicited help or discussion from meeting participants. This format has proven successful at past meetings in generating collaborative efforts for rodenticide research.

No publications were produced from the WCC-095 during the past year.