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Development of a Decision Support Tool for
Canada Goose Management
Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources
ESSA was engaged by the Ontario Ministry of Natural
Resources to design and develop a customized database in MS Access
that will be used as a research tool in support of Canada goose
management efforts in the province. Following a comprehensive needs
assessment, a database structure was designed that would accommodate
banding and re-encounter (recapture, observation, harvest) data
from five different sources. A detailed set of import rules was
then developed to govern the way in which the various fields of
data would be integrated into the database, and the routines for
import were written accordingly. Over 300,000 records were successfully
imported into the database, and extensive quality checking followed
to ensure that the data had been imported correctly. Detailed step-by-step
instructions explaining how to import data into the database from
each source have been prepared to enable OMNR researchers to import
subsequent years' data themselves.
In a future phase of the project, the database
will be linked to a user-friendly interface through which researchers
will be able to run a prescribed set of analyses, defined by the
researchers and developed by ESSA, and generate reports for presentation
to partner management agencies. Ultimately, the system will be linked
to a GIS to enable spatial analyses and reporting as well.
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