Thinking Like a Manager: Reflections on Wildlife Management

Thinking Like a Manager is a fictional novel that follows six wildlife managers -- each a representative of a different perspective of the profession -- succeeding an emergency survey mission in the aftermath of an oil spill in the Northwest. With the mission complete and with time on their hands due to inclement weather, they discuss the doctrines, theories and tribulations facing contemporary wildlife biologists. Some struggle with and some embrace the human element in wildlife management, yet all agree that the element is inescapable.

Thinking Like a Manager is an entertaining means of exploring the interrelationships of Aldo Leopold's ecological tenets, the public-trust doctrine and the sociological practices that today's wildlife management professionals must incorporate to be effective. For a profession that has changed drastically since its inception in the early 1900s, this novel offers a model for teamwork to achieve such an end.

by John F. Organ, Daniel J. Decker, Len H. Carpenter, Wiliam F. Siemer and Shawn J. Riley
illustrated by Daniel P. Metz
2006, 120 pages