About our work
We conduct ecological research to help better understand, manage, and conserve animal populations. Our applied research program builds knowledge about fish and wildlife populations and communities by seeking general solutions to specific management and conservation challenges. Vast, wild landscapes that still support functional ecosystems are a hallmark of Wyoming and the West. Our work seeks to better understand how these systems work and how their functioning is altered by anthropogenic disturbance and habitat loss. By better understanding the ecology of the Western landscape, we hope to provide knowledge and tools to managers that seek to maintain healthy fish and wildlife habitats and communities.
The Wyoming Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit is a cooperative research program housed at the University of Wyoming’s Zoology and Physiology Department, where staff scientists are funded through the US Geological Survey. We are part of the nationwide Cooperative Research Unit Program and we have a commitment to species and issues that are central to Wyoming and the Rocky Mountain West. We work closely with our State cooperator, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, often developing collaborative projects designed to provide useful information for state fish and wildlife managers. We also work with other state and federal resource management agencies and with NGOs, and we see such collaborative relationships as fundamental to providing scientific information at the spatial and temporal scales at which ecosystems are managed. In addition, our close collaboration with wildlife managers assures that students trained in our group gain a full appreciation of the dynamic interplay between management and research.
