The course covers basic ecological concepts, habitats, and case histories showing how people and societies interact with wildlife. This course is designed to be the first course in wildlife biology for majors in wildlife science, forest management and conservation of wildland resources programs. The course covers basic principles of animal ecology, population characteristics, approaches to assessing wildlife abundance and conservation strategies. This is a course covering basic ornithology, including natural history, population ecology and conservation. Field Ornithology Students in this course learn how to identify approximately 200 species of birds as well as become familiar with methods to survey bird populations.
Students conduct their own field research projects.
I am interested in many areas of avian ecology and conservation. We now have a good understanding of the basic nature of bird communities in most natural and managed coniferous forest landscapes but we need to better understand some individual species responses to environmental gradients and to forest management. Future research will be directed in these areas. Nearly all the funding we generate in the Wildlife Science Group is directed toward providing support for graduate students. Consequently, much of my own research is essentially cooperative efforts with graduate students.