The human dimension of wildlife management will pose increasingly difficult and important challenges to wildlife management agencies and university wildlife departments in the 1980's. The current imbalance between services rendered to consumptive users as compared to services for appreciative users must be rectified. Reallignment of policies and programs to incorporate new information generated by social scientists will be necessary. The first task should be to identify the spectrum of wildlife users from generalists to various specialists. Data on what each subgroup does in the outdoors and what each type expects from the resource should be gathered and analyzed. Analysis of recreational specialization yields new information on resource demand and provides a rationale for allocation of resources in short supply. The social scientist will work with the resource manager to match demand with supply of the available resources. The social scientists should work with wildlife educators to develop educational programs for each type of wildlife recreationist to help improve outdoor ethics. The programs would include information on skills, the wildlife resource, and the activities and rights of different user groups. The objective of such programs is to speed up maturation of users from the generalist level to a level of moderate specialization, where satisfaction stems from more than taking the limit. It is suggested that first steps in gathering information on the human dimension be done at university departments in cooperation with wildlife agencies. When techniques of integrating the human dimension with population and habitat dimensions are established, agencies will expand their professional staffby hiring managers trained in the social sciences. This gradual process will accommodate the conservative philosophy and funding limitations characteristic of the Southeast.
