Ayers, Christopher R.

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DigitalCommons@USU

Human–Wildlife Interactions 5(2):197, Fall 2011CommentaryState of the Berryman InstituteCHRISTOPHER R. AYERS, Mississippi State University, Box 9690, Mississippi State, MS 39762, USA    cayers@CFR.MsState.eduThe Jack H. Berryman Institute (BI) was created in 1993 at Utah State University (USU) to help resolve issues of human–wildlife confl ict and to improve education on human-wildlife interactions. In 2002, the BI expanded to include Mississippi State University (MSU) as an eastern base of operations, and, together, BI-West (USU) and BI-East (MSU) aim to support research and education in human–wildlife interactions. BI operations were long funded by a federal earmark on the USDA/APHIS/Wildlife Services (WS) budget, but this funding was lost when the U.S. Congress eliminated all earmarks for federal fi scal year 2011. Since the loss of federal funding, the BI has been in “baseline survival” mode while seeking ways to retain its faculty, staff , and student positions using alternative funding sources. Some of this funding has been obtained from the parent states (Utah and Mississippi) or university budget adjustments, and, thus, the core BI personnel remain supported. However, positions that have been vacated since the budget cuts cannot be refi lled. Additionally, several educational programs implemented by the BI, including distance education courses and academic advising for WS  employees, and activities of the USU student organization at BI-West, have had to be terminated. Also discontinued is the request for proposals program implemented by BI-West to support university research and graduate students with solution-aimed projects on human–wildlife interactions in the western United States. Despite budget cuts and programming losses, the BI continues to have the support of many wildlife professionals that want to see the Institute’s mission of supporting research and education in human–wildlife interactions endure. BI administrators, thanks to the support of their respective university administrations, are using new resources to support personnel and programming. These include fees for conferences and symposia, cost-recoverable workshops, and sales from BI publications. The BI’s peer-reviewed journal Human–Wildlife Interactions is currently sustainable through page charges, subscriptions, advertisements, and sales of Institute publications, such as management guides, monographs, and conference proceedings. Also, USU will continue to use the Jack H. Berryman endowment to support undergraduate academic scholarships.Many research and educational organizations have been aff ected by budgetary constraints in recent years. The BI is working hard with its federal partner, WS, to fi nd innovative ways of continuing its mission. With the collective consideration and support of all those invested in resolving problems involving human–wildlife interactions, the BI hopefully will weather the storm and continue to serve its nationally recognized role in wildlife science in the United States.AcknowledgmentsThanks to BI co-directors, Dr. Johan du Toit and Dr. Bruce Leopold, and to Dr. Jessica Tegt for their contributions to this article.CHRISTOPHER R. AYERS is currently a Ph.D. student at Mississippi State University in the Department of Wildlife, Fisher-ies, and Aquaculture.  His research involves investiga-tions into relationships between resource use and fi tness in a variety of species.  His professional interests include private-lands wildlife manage-ment, predator–prey interac-tions, and public education.  He completed a bachelor’s degree in wildlife science in 2003 and a master’s degree in secondary science education in 2004 from Virginia Tech. After teaching middle school science for 1 year in Hawaii and another year in Maryland, he returned to gradu-ate school for a master’s degree in wildlife science at North Carolina State University. He has spent the past 3 summers of his Ph.D. program working on a predator–prey study in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

\u3cem\u3eCommentary\u3c/em\u3e State of the Berryman Institute

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\u3cem\u3eCommentary\u3c/em\u3e State of the Berryman Institute

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