| Grouse Specialist Group chair: Ilse Storch |
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| Ilse Storch |
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Ilse Storch is professor of wildlife ecology and management at Freiburg University, Germany. Her department’s research combines approaches of conservation biology, landscape ecology, and population modelling and genetics. The effects of anthropogenic habitat fragmentation on wildlife individuals, populations, and communities and their implications for conservation are a major focus of her work. Ilse also has been a consultant to wildlife conservation programs worldwide. Ilse has worked on grouse since the mid 1980s. She had just completed her PhD when she became a founding member of the Grouse Specialist Group in 1993 and has been Chair since 1996. Building and strengthening the network of grouse specialists has been one of her major tasks, and the Group has grown to some 120 members from 30 countries. Under Ilse’s lead, the Group published the first IUCN Grouse Action Plan in 2000, and is presently working on an update for online publication. Grouse are among the best-studied bird families, and the Grouse Specialist Group can build on a vast body of sound scientific information and expertise. Yet, several species and many local populations of grouse are threatened with extinction. Forestry, agriculture and urban development destroy or change habitats in a way that grouse often cannot adapt to. Clearly, grouse conservation is limited by human land use interests, and not by a lack of science. Yet, available science is not always adequately accounted for in policy and management decisions. Therefore, a key task for the Group is to provide, collate and distil scientific knowledge and management experience to inform and influence conservation debates, and to support or initiate conservation action. Grouse are excellent conservation flagship species, and due to their specialized habitat needs and large spatial requirements, good representatives of biodiversity in general. |
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