Accomplishments:

The annual meeting of the WCC-95 has been well attended by both participants and other attendees. Attendees come from industry, federal and state government, and universities. Attendee roles include research, teaching, registration, sales, consulting, operations, extension, and manufacturing. Several states are represented at the meetings. Species discussed range from rodents to wolves and bears. Areas of concern for pest damage include agriculture, urban areas, forests, rangeland, and endangered species.

The main topics for the meetings have included: extension views on needs for vertebrate pest management, wildlife diseases, working with the media, damage control operators, and prairie dogs. In addition to these main topics, many other topics have been presented and discussed during the meetings. The meetings have been valuable tools for sharing ideas and are open for discussion and suggestions.

The minutes of the committee meetings have been included in the University of Nebraska wildlife damage control web site for access by the public. The web site includes around twenty abstracts a year dealing with wildlife damage management issues and new research findings.

Since the most recent meeting, a communications site that includes an electronic discussion forum and the ability to post documents has been established. This provides a convenient method of keeping interested individuals informed and allows collaboration on a variety of documents.

Each year between 2-12 undergraduate and graduate students from major western universities attend the meeting. Some of them give presentations of their research.