4 services research (Lyytimäki and Sipilä 2009; Roman et al. 2020). Likewise, it can be difficult for profes- sionals to understand how the actions they take that make it possible for trees to survive in urban areas can simultaneously be harming the wildlife that rely on these trees. Three years of working group meetings, fueled by small grants from local organizations and generous amounts of donated time from the employers of the project leaders, resulted in the writing and release of Tree Care for Birds & Other Wildlife: Best Manage- ment Practices in California in 2018. These best management practices were reviewed by 30 experi- enced professionals during an open comment period, approximately half of whom were arboriculture and urban forestry practitioners and researchers, and half of whom were wildlife biologists, wildlife advocates, and wildlife rehabilitators. The guidelines present a risk management framework for mitigating the impacts to wildlife during tree care. Following the guidelines requires first assessing the breeding season and value of the habitat being worked in, serving to estimate the likelihood of encountering wildlife that would be sensitive to tree care activities. Depending on the results of this assessment, the guidelines out- line a hierarchy of expertise necessary to avoid impacts to wildlife under each circumstance, ranging from a simple 15-minute wildlife awareness training to having a qualified biologist on site during work. Despite the challenges, the knowledge exchange and relationships built during the process of develop- ing the California wildlife best management practices were invaluable. In particular, having expert leader- ship in our coalition from the wildlife community steered our guidelines in productive directions from the start, bringing in guidelines and frameworks from other professional communities like utility vegetation management, conservation, and wildlife rehabilita- tion. Additionally, the broad partnership added cru- cial legitimacy to our products, making them appealing to skeptics and critics. The network built and maintained through the creation of the California BMP then served as a blueprint for expanding to other regions and recruiting new partners. NEXT STEPS: EXPANDING TO NEW REGIONS AND BEYOND During the course of releasing the best management practices for California, the project was adopted as an ©2022 International Society of Arboriculture Bassett et al: Lessons Learned from Developing Wildlife BMPs official program of the Western Chapter of the Inter- national Society of Arboriculture (WCISA), the pri- mary arboricultural professional organization for California, Arizona, Nevada, and Hawaii. As the coa- lition set out to create a new edition of the guidelines to meet the needs of the 3 other member states of the WCISA so that we could successfully share the guid- ance to a broader tree care professional community, we immediately encountered challenges. Not only were the regulatory environments in the other states significantly different, but both the ecol- ogy and community value systems differed signifi- cantly. For example, the first edition of the California BMP relied heavily on designated breeding seasons, a concept that was also heavily ensconced in policies of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. In Arizona and Nevada, designated breeding seasons were less established and discussed than in Califor- nia, so we worked with biologists and organizations to define appropriate periods for different wildlife. In Hawaii, the conservation community was relatively uninterested in the topic of the impact of tree care industry practices to wildlife. Their priorities were to conserve endangered and threatened native bird spe- cies, which are largely confined to protected areas, compared to the highly disturbed landscapes domi- nated by introduced and invasive wildlife species where tree care companies work. Local experts had also already created tree care guidelines for the 2 spe- cies deemed of highest concern—Gygis alba (manu- o-Kū or the white fairy tern) and Aeorestes semotus (ʻōpeʻapeʻa or the Hawaiian hoary bat). The California BMP also recommends that arbor- ists develop relationships with their local wildlife rehabilitators and keep their contact information on hand. However, this is unrealistic as a practice in areas without a thriving wildlife rehabilitator profes- sional community. For example, in Nevada, there are only 6 wildlife rehabilitators licensed by the Nevada Department of Wildlife for the entire state (Nevada Department of Wildlife 2020). We recommended seeking out the resources provided by the National Wildlife Rehabilitators Association when local wild- life rehabilitators are not available. Internationally, there is evidence that professionals struggle with similar issues, such as in the Arboricul- tural Association’s (United Kingdom) advice for arborists in relation to tree care practices and the UK’s Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 (Arboricultural
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