Berryman Institute

The Berryman Institute is a national organization based in the Department of Wildland Resources at Utah State University. It is named after Jack H. Berryman to honor his distinguished career in wildlife management. The Berryman Institute is dedicated to improving human-wildlife relationships and resolving human-wildlife conflicts through teaching, research, and extension.

In January 2017, we introduced the new Human-Wildlife Interactions (HWI) manuscript submission and review portal. We partnered with Digital Commons and Utah State University libraries to provide our readers and authors the very best in publication support and service. Our 2019 Winter Issue of Human-Wildlife Interactions (HWI) featuring Human-Bear Conflicts is the sixth issue we have published in partnership with Digital Commons. Digital Commons, in addition to providing an easy portal for author on-line submissions, has increased the number of submissions HWI receives, expedited the review and decision process, and thus enabled us to reduce the time from author submission to publication. To accommodate the increased number of submissions we now publish three issues a year. We are also exploring an option to provide our authors with instantaneous on-line publication, once their manuscript has been accepted, and approved for publication.

Human–Wildlife Interactions exists to serve the professional needs of the wildlife biologist and manager in the arena of human–wildlife conflicts/interactions, wildlife damage management, and contemporary wildlife management. The intent of HWI is to publish original contributions on all aspects of contemporary wildlife management and human–wildlife interactions. We place an emphasis on scientific research and management case studies that identify and report innovative conservation strategies, technologies, tools, and partnerships that can enhance human–wildlife interactions by mitigating human–wildlife conflicts through direct and indirect management of wildlife and increased stakeholder engagement. Our intent is to promote a dialogue among wildlife professionals and their stakeholders concerning contemporary human-wildlife management issues. In doing so, we hope to provide a permanent repository for human-wildlife conflict management science and case studies that document and share manager experiences and lessons learned with others.

One key metric of this impact, is having the ability to track who is reading the journal. Digital Commons provides our authors with immediate feedback regarding who is reading their work. We can now track the number of downloads by manuscript, the location (i.e., county, state, or province) of the download, and the institution by type (i.e., university, government, etc.). In the last two years, we have had over 40,000 downloads of articles in 174 countries. We are now averaging over 100 articles downloaded a day. The credit for this exponential increase in the visibility of HWI, must clearly go to our authors, our reviewers, and our Associate Editors. Without our authors willingness to have their science and experiences veted through our peer-review process, and our reviewers and editors willingness to provide their expertise to provide the peer-review, we would not exist. There will always remain some uncertainty about how best to manage human-wildlife conflicts. This uncertainty exists not because we lack the management expertise or will, but more so because of public perceptions of the conflict and their acceptance of the management options. However, one thing is certain – for humans and wildlife to co-exist in a world where human population growth is increasing encroaching into wildlife habitats, managers and stakeholders must be willing to engage in open and frank dialogue where human desires and the needs of wildlife are both considered.

Again we thank you for your past support and look forward to working with you to create the world's premier journal for the wildlife manager. Please feel free to share your thoughts, ideas, or concerns with me at terry.messmer@usu.edu.