Conservation and management of wildlife is a special field of applied ecology that should rank very high in public interest. In general the following may be said to be the aims and objectives of wildlife management.
1. Protection of natural habitats of organisms through controlled exploitation.
2. Maintenance of rare species in protected areas such as national parks, santuries etc.
3. Establishment of specific biosphere reserves for endangered plants and animals.
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4. Protection of wild life through legislation such as banning hunting etc.
5. Imposing specific restrictions on export of endangered plants and animals or their products.
6. Educating the public about the need to protect and preserve the environment as a long range goal for the welfare of future generations.
The above aims and objectives may be realised by the following methods.
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1. Establishment of national parks and sanctuaries including preservation of the original habitats of the organisms.
2. Establishment of zoos for captive breeding and maintenance of exotic animals which are not native to our country.
3. Enactment of suitable legislation to protect the wildlife.
Establishment of national parks and santuries:
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Conservation of wildlife is of two types – in situ conservation and ex situ conservation. In the former the rare species are conserved in their original habitat where as in the second method the endangered species are conserved in green houses or glass houses if they are plants or in zoos and such other protected areas if they happened to be animals.
In conservation of biological diversity National parks and Santuaries have played a great role. Basically there is no difference between a national park and sanctuary. Generally however a sanctuary is species oriented. For e.g., sanctuary for the conservation of pitcher plant or conservation of great Indian bustard etc. In National parks however the basic aim is to preserve the entire habitat with a variety of wildlife such as tiger, lion etc.