Sean Finn lives in Boise, Idaho and is a Science Coordinator in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Science Applications Program. Sean’s work mostly involves infusing science into conservation decision-making across large landscapes. His initial training was in wildlife biology but has since expanded, over the last 28 years, to include diverse aspects of natural resource science and management including landscape ecology, systems analysis and climate adaptation. Most recently, Sean has been working on developing Landscape Conservation Designs, which bring together collaborative goal setting, spatial optimization modeling and structured decision making to envision and quantify desired future conditions for resilient and sustainable socio-ecological landscapes. In his free time, Sean enjoys volunteering on local habitat restoration projects and maintaining a native xeriscape at home.
Sean has worked closely with the Northwest Climate Adaptation Science Center (NW CASC) over the years, first as Coordinator for the Great Northern Landscape Conservation Cooperative and most recently as a part-time Partnerships Ecologist for the NW CASC.
What led you to work in the field of climate adaptation?
I have always been interested in how the natural world responds to disturbance, both at the species level and as integrated systems. My graduate work focused on northern goshawk population response to varying levels of timber harvest; I discovered that landscape patterns were as influential on nest site selection as conditions close to the nest tree. That discovery has framed much of my work since. How do animals adjust to change? And how do those species-level adjustments shape natural communities? Now that we collectively recognize that accelerated, human-caused global warming is leading to profound changes in the water cycle, phenology, energy and nutrient flows, I am driven to understand how species respond and how we can strategically deploy conservation to offset or at least minimize impacts on biodiversity and ecological integrity.
What does your day-to-day work look like?
As a Science Coordinator, my days can be pretty hectic switching from computer to phone calls to literature reviews. I work on projects stretching from Colorado to British Columbia so the focal species/system sometimes changes by the hour! While I usually end up doing more coordination and less science, a lot of my day-to-day work includes synthesizing and communicating conservation science data and information to interdisciplinary teams that are working to align management actions in multijurisdictional landscapes. I do get to do some spatial analyses and modeling, which is nice.
How does your organization support climate resilience in the Northwest?
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s mission is to ‘work with others to conserve, protect, and enhance fish, wildlife, plants, and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people,’ so there’s a lot of climate resilience weaved in there. We manage about 75 wildlife refuges and fish hatcheries across the Northwest and are responsible for the recovery of 98 species currently listed as threatened or endangered. As we develop conservation plans, species status assessments and recovery plans, we incorporate considerations of future climate conditions to project potential management strategies that conserve biodiversity, an important component of ecological resilience. The Science Applications program that I work under delivers technical expertise and large landscape concepts. For example, one outcome of a Landscape Conservation Design is meant to strategically guide placement of new wildlife refuges in places where species are likely to persist under the climate of the future.
What is your favorite thing about your work?
My favorite thing about my work is the challenge of thinking about the interactions among living things (including humans) and the biophysical factors that constrain or threaten their persistence. Occasionally those factors are fairly simple to identify (increasing temperatures -> reduced soil moisture -> higher drought conditions -> larger and more intense wildfire) but in a lot of cases there’s more complexity. I find teasing out elements of that complexity and devising plausible adaptive responses quite enjoyable. Knowing that I can make a small contribution to sustain and enhance ecological function – and benefit future generations of humans, wildlife and plant communities – gives me satisfaction that my time is well spent.