Tayler Scherr completed her master’s degree in 2022 studying with Dr. Anna Chalfoun at the Wyoming Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit in the University of Wyoming’s Department of Zoology and Physiology. Originally from North Dakota, Scherr received her B.S. in Wildlife Biology from the University of Montana in May 2015.
Scherr began fieldwork in the summer of 2013, working with songbirds in the Coconino National Forest in Arizona after spending time in the Martin lab encoding behavioral videos for Dr. Tom Martin and his students. She began working with the WY Cooperative Research Unit in 2014 as a technician on the Songbirds and Energy Development project in Pinedale, Wyoming, where she realized her interest in applied research and how anthropogenic change affects wildlife and their habitats. Her other field experiences include owl banding in western Montana and western Wyoming, sage grouse and sharptail grouse surveying in eastern Montana, and small mammal trapping in western Wyoming.
Scherr is interested in the fitness responses of wildlife to multiple forms of human-induced rapid environmental change, and the extent to which behavior can help buffer the potential effects. Specifically, her thesis research examined the effects of climatic variation and habitat loss on sagebrush-obligate songbirds on gas fields in western Wyoming.
When Scherr is not out finding songbird nests, she enjoys anything that gets her outdoors, from hiking and cross country skiing to fishing and hunting. She also enjoys horseback riding, reading anything and everything, and spending time with my crazy nest searching partner, her dog Quill!