Teaching Notes for Save the Turtles! And the Grizzlies? Or the Woodpeckers? Prioritizing Endangered Species Conservation 1 1 Photo credits: Grizzly bear: USFWS photo. http://www.fws.gov/mountain-prairie/species/mammals/grizzly/ Red cockaded woodpecker: Photo by Michael McCloy, USFWS. http://www.fws.gov/rcwrecovery/ Atlantic salmon: Photo by William Hartley, USFWS. http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/species/fish/atlanticsalmon.htm Oahu tree snails: Photo by Steve Miller, USFWS. http://www.fws.gov/pacificislands/fauna/oahutreesnails.html Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle: Photo by Kim Bassos-Hull, Mote Marine Laboratory. http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/species/turtles/kempsridley.htm#description Dr. Judy Che-Castaldo, Dr. William Burnside, and Dr. Cynthia Wei National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC), Annapolis, MD Abstract This case study explores the complexities involved in endangered species management and provides an opportunity for students to perform an exercise in socio-environmental synthesis. Developed for introductory undergraduate courses in environmental studies or conservation biology, it contains suggested modifications for upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses. Students take the position of wildlife managers who must decide how best to allocate limited resources for conserving multiple threatened and endangered species. Students are provided with data on the ecological characteristics and socio-economic circumstances for a set of five species, and then work in small groups to develop conservation priority rankings based on those data. Students summarize their decisions in writing and in small-group presentations, and the case concludes with an instructor-led discussion of how actual conservation priorities are determined. Objectives:  Understand the concept of socio-environmental systems  Recognize interactions between ecological and social factors in an environmental issue (recovery of endangered species)  Synthesize natural and social science data  Develop and compare ways to integrate different sources and types of data  Apply synthesis results to make a management decision  Be able to explain why it was important to consider interdisciplinary sources of data and how to reconcile conflicting information Topical areas: Wildlife Conservation, Environmental Science, Socio-environmental Synthesis Education level: Undergraduate lower division, Undergraduate upper division, Graduate Type/method: Small Group, Student Presentations Prioritizing Endangered Species Conservation by Judy Che-Castaldo, William Burnside, and Cynthia Wei is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.