Patuxent Wildlife Research Center--Vision

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The scientific activities of the Center, which are initiated, developed, and implemented by the Center's scientists and management team, emerge in response to Department of the Interior (DOI) and other partners' needs in one or more Scientific Programs that reflect the Center's capabilities and specializations. These issues shape our opportunities. We accomplish our vision using the Center's capabilities to meet programmatic and project area goals to:

Continue Patuxent's historic role within the international scientific community as a premier research institute for wildlife science.

Excel at addressing and solving the most critical, pressing, and difficult problems in wildlife and natural resources sciences.

Serve a leadership role in assessing and monitoring the status and trends of the nation's biological resources, especially to improve the management and availability of national wildlife data and to improve monitoring programs on Federal lands.

Establish the Patuxent Research Refuge as a model of long term ecological monitoring and to understand the ecological and economic role of the green space provided by Patuxent within the agricultural and urban landscape of Maryland.

Improve understanding of the effects of human impacts and of natural processes in managing natural resources.

Improve understanding of the fate and effects of contaminants in the environment.

Improve understanding of the scientific basis of restoring wildlife populations, habitats, and landscapes.

Improve understanding of the scientific basis of maintaining public lands, especially national parks and national wildlife refuges.

Lead in managing and transferring natural resource information resulting in the enhanced conservation of natural resources, particularly those that are the responsibility of the Department of the Interior.