An appeal to undergraduate wildlife programs: send scientists to learn statistics

Undergraduate wildlife students taking introductory statistics too often are poorly prepared and insufficiently motivated to learn statistics. We have also encountered too many wildlife professionals, even with graduate degrees, who exhibit an aversion to thinking statistically, either relying too heavily on statisticians or avoiding statistics altogether. We believe part of the reason for these problems is that wildlife majors are insufficiently grounded in the scientific method and analytical thinking before they take statistics. We suggest that a partial solution is to assure wildlife majors are trained in the scientific method at the very beginning of their academic careers.