Colorado Chapter of the Wildlife Society 2018 Annual Meeting Speaker Bios. Symposium: Overview of IMBCR Program (Wednesday 7 February 2018)

Transcription

1 Colorado Chapter of the Wildlife Society 2018 Annual Meeting Speaker Bios Symposium: Overview of IMBCR Program (Wednesday 7 February 2018) Luke George received his undergraduate degree at Reed College and his PhD at the University of New Mexico. After a postdoc at Colorado State University, Luke was a faculty member in the Wildlife Department at Humboldt State University for 21 years before becoming the Science Director at Bird Conservancy of the Rockies in July His research has focused on songbird ecology, demography, habitat selection, and conservation. Jennifer A. Blakesley is a Senior Scientist at Bird Conservancy of the Rockies, where she has worked since She earned a B.S. degree in Biology (Utah State University), a M.S. in Wildlife Resources (University of Idaho) and a Ph.D. in Fishery and Wildlife Biology (Colorado State University). She was among the biologists and biometricians who originally designed the Integrated Monitoring in Bird Conservation Regions program. Prior to employment with the Bird Conservancy, Jennifer spent several years studying relationships between songbirds and their habitats (U.S. Forest Service and University of Idaho), and 18 years studying demography and habitat associations of Northern and California Spotted Owls (Humboldt State University, U.S. Forest Service and Colorado State University). She is currently the Principle Investigator of a project that monitors rates of site occupancy by Mexican Spotted Owls on U.S. Forest Service Lands throughout Arizona and New Mexico. Chris White is Director of Science Operations with Bird Conservancy of the Rockies. After graduating from Arizona State University in 2002 with a Bachelor s Degree in Biology, Chris volunteered at an avian rehabilitation facility in Scottsdale, Arizona and was smitten with birds. He conducted field work for the next few years, moving to Fort Collins, Colorado along the way. Chris was initially hired to work for the Bird Conservancy as a data entry technician in the fall of Since then, Chris has worked his way up through the ranks, serving as a biologist, then IMBCR Coordinator, and finally to his current position working directly under the Science Director.

2 David Pavlacky has worked as a Research Ecologist Biometrician at the Bird Conservancy of the Rockies since 2010, and as a Spatial Ecologist beginning in David s first wildlife job involved avian point count surveys on the Rio Grande National Forest for the Colorado Bird Observatory. Currently, his research interests include quantitative methods for the distribution and abundance of wildlife to answer research questions in conservation biology and applied ecology. The Bird Conservancy work began with the stop-over ecology of waterfowl and shorebirds in playa wetlands of eastern Colorado and western Nebraska. In collaboration with partners, David went on to develop the multi-scale occupancy framework for the Integrated Monitoring in Bird Conservation Regions Program. Recent research includes structured decision making to integrate stakeholder objectives, management actions and multi-scale habitat relationships for the multi-species conservation of sagebrush-dependent birds. Current work includes lesser-prairie chicken occupancy and umbrella species conservation, songbird and northern goshawk responses to bark beetle outbreaks, and the development of hierarchical Bayes multispecies occupancy models. David received a B.S. degree in Wildlife Biology from Colorado State University (1995) and a M.S. degree in Zoology and Physiology from the University of Wyoming (2000). He earned a Ph.D. in Zoology from the University of Queensland, Australia (2008), where he studied the landscape genetics and metapopulation ecology of rainforest birds. As of 2017, David serves as faculty affiliate in the Department of Fish, Wildlife and Conservation Biology at Colorado State University and is teaching an online course in mark-recapture methods for population biology. Adam Green is a biometrician with Bird Conservancy of the Rockies. He received a B.S. degree in Wildlife Biology from Murray State University in 2004, a M.S. degree in Biology from the University of Arkansas in 2006, and a Ph.D. in Fish, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology from Colorado State University in He served as a postdoctoral fellow at Mississippi State University, where he developed an adaptive harvest management framework for Northern Bobwhite, and at Colorado State University and the U.S. Geological Survey, where he investigated the impacts of oil and gas development on Greater Sage-grouse lek attendance. His main interests are developing quantitative methods to better understand animal populations and how to manage them. This includes integrating science, management, and policy to better and more efficiently manage and protect natural resources, while considering the multiple interests of all stakeholders through formal decision analysis. David Klute is currently the Species Conservation Unit Supervisor with Colorado Parks and Wildlife. Prior to that he was the Bird Conservation Coordinator for CPW, and Region 6 Assistant Migratory Bird Coordinator for U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, David has a B.S. in Fisheries and Wildlife (University of Missouri); M.S. in Biology (Kansas State University); and Ph.D. in Wildlife and Fisheries Science (Pennsylvania State University).

3 Rick Truex has worked for the US Forest Service for the past 20 years. His began his career in California with a program focused on forest carnivore ecology, monitoring, and management. In 2011, he began working for the Forest Service s Rocky Mountain Region and currently serves as the Region s wildlife program leader. He received BS in Wildlife from Humboldt State University and attended graduate school at UC Berkeley. Jake Ivan currently works for the Mammals Research Section of Colorado Parks and Wildlife. He holds degrees in wildlife from Purdue University, University of Montana, and Colorado State University. His research is focused on estimation of population parameters and conservation/management of subalpine wildlife. Alex van Boer is a biologist and GIS specialist with Bird Conservancy of the Rockies. He received a Bachelor s degree in Biology from Bowdoin College in 2010 and spent several seasons working as a field technician in coastal New England. Before moving to Colorado, Alex studied migratory fish for Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game and the Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve and monitored saltmarsh birds for the University of Connecticut. Alex joined Bird Conservancy full-time in 2016, providing GIS support for the study design and data analyses of the IMBCR program. He currently coordinates IMBCR field implementation in Utah and riparian surveys on the Dolores River.

4 Becky Jones is a Private Lands Wildlife Biologist with Bird Conservancy of the Rockies based in Steamboat Springs, CO. Becky received her Bachelor s Degree in Wildlife Biology from Colorado State University. After graduating, she worked for the U.S. Forest Service on the Routt National Forest for 12 years as a wildlife technician and later as a wildlife biologist, conducting habitat work for a wide variety of species, including elk, northern goshawks, flammulated owls, boreal toads, and sandhill cranes to name a few. In 2005, she began working with Colorado Parks and Wildlife assisting with Greater Sage-grouse and Columbian sharptailed grouse population monitoring and continues to help every spring with lek counts for the past 13 years. Becky has partnered with various nonprofits in northwest Colorado to promote environmental education to local schools and at community events. She joined the Bird Conservancy in January 2015 where she provides technical and financial resources for private landowners and land managers to incorporate wildlife management into their conservation efforts utilizing the Farm Bill and other programs. Nick Van Lanen graduated with a B.S. in Wildlife Ecology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in He received a M.S. from Colorado State University in the spring of After graduate school, he began working as a Biologist for the Bird Conservancy of the Rockies where he assists with program development, conservation delivery, data analyses, reporting, publications, and oversight of the Bird Conservancy s IMBCR monitoring efforts in Wyoming and Idaho. He currently serves as an Associate Editor for the Natural Areas Journal and is a member of the Avian Knowledge Network Steering Committee, National Node Leadership Team, Pinyon Jay working group, and the New Mexico Avian Conservation Partnership. In the fall of 2016 Nick began a PhD program at CSU while maintaining his employment with the Bird Conservancy. For his dissertation, Nick is using IMBCR data to develop habitat relationship models for sagebrush and pinyon-juniper associated species. He hopes to apply these models to help inform multi-species management within the context of conifer removal practices aimed at recovering greater sage-grouse populations. Contact: ext. 28 Nick.vanlanen@birdconservancy.org

5 Road ecology Plenary Session (Thursday 8 February 2018) Dr. Marcel Huijser is a researcher in road ecology at the Western Transportation Institute at Montana State University, USA, where he leads a range of road and wildlife related projects for state and federal governments, counties, foundations, and other funders. He was the principal scientist on the 15-year long US Highway 93 wildlife mitigation project, which was a 90 km long highway duplication project that dissected important natural habitats, agricultural land, and small villages on the Flathead Indian Reservation. Marcel is recognized internationally for his work on the development and testing of animal detection systems that alert drivers to the presence of large herbivores along highways, having conducted trials in Yellowstone National Park, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, and Pennsylvania. Marcel and colleagues at WTI have undertaken commissioned reports for the federal US government on wildlife-vehicle collision reduction measures and wildlife crossing structures to mitigate the barrier effects of transportation infrastructure. Marcel is also a visiting professor at the University of São Paulo in Brazil where he has been teaching road ecology on a regular basis since 2014 and collaborating on a diverse suite of road-impact and mitigation studies. Some of these Brazilian projects include quantifying roadkill along the toll roads in São Paulo State, the development of a Brazilian animal detection system, and the evaluation of wildlife mitigation measures along the road through Carlos Botelho State Park that hosts one of the largest remaining fragments of Atlantic forest in Southern Brazil with threatened and endangered species such as the jaguar, southern muriqui and South American tapir. Dave Eller graduated from Colorado State University with a Bachelor s of Science in Civil Engineering. He started at CDOT as a temporary employee in Metro Denver (Region 6) in 1991 and hired on permanent in the Grand Junction Residency three months later. He spent many years as a Design Engineer, and was part of CDOT when our organization went through the re-engineering effort to implement Total Project Leadership (TPL) and was one of the first Region 3 engineers to follow his design through project construction as the Construction Project Engineer. Dave spent several years as the Region 3 Materials Engineer and then promoted to the Region 3 Program West Engineer. He became the Region 3 Director in 2010 where he remains today. His responsibility includes management of Maintenance and Engineering programs in 15 Counties of Northwest Colorado. CDOT Region 3 has approximately 560 full time employees and delivers an annual budget of approximately $200M. Dave s leadership tries to instill his belief that CDOT employees are truly the most valuable resource we have, and the public has entrusted each of us to make Colorado transportation safe and reliable! His hobbies include coaching youth sports, hunting, and spending as much time in Lake Powell as he can. Dave lives in Grand Junction with his wife Gwen and together they have two grown children. Dean Riggs is a Deputy Regional Manager for Colorado Parks and Wildlife, and has extensive experience working throughout Colorado. He received a Bachelor's degree in Animal Science from Colorado State University, that he has applied to 28 years of state service with Colorado Department of Corrections, and the Colorado Division of Wildlife/Colorado Parks and Wildlife. His work experience includes the following: 10 years private sector employment in the Agriculture Industry, 3 years working for Corrections as the Wild Horse Program Manager and 6 other Agribusiness Operations that employed inmates, 3 years in Pueblo as a Wildlife Technician, 4 years in Pueblo as a District Wildlife Manager (DWM), 5 years in Canon City as DWM in the Canon City North District, 5 years in Grand Junction as an Area Wildlife Manager, and 8 years in Grand Junction as the Assistant/Deputy Regional Manager.

6 Dr. Patricia Cramer is an independent wildlife researcher based in Logan, Utah. Her work for the past 13 years is focused on researching wildlife crossing structures, and working at the state and national levels to include wildlife concerns in the transportation planning process. She shares her knowledge with both wildlife professionals and engineers to help agencies create the most effective wildlife crossing structures. Her research projects include two for the National Cooperative Highway Transportation Program (NCHRP), and over a dozen for departments of transportation in: Utah, Idaho, Montana, Washington, Oregon, Vermont, South Dakota, Colorado, and Nevada. Recent awards include the 2010 Conservationist of the Year award from the Denver Zoo, the 2013 Federal Highways Environmental Excellence Award for Research, and the Utah Department of Transportation 2015 Trailblazer Award for excellence in transportation research. Pat Basting has over 30 years of experience in natural resource management, transportation ecology, and the application of tribal, state, and federal environmental laws and regulations in California, Colorado, Montana, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming. He worked for 20 years as a biologist for the Montana Department of Transportation (MDT). During his tenure in the Missoula District at MDT, Pat worked on the planning, design, construction and monitoring of more than 80 wildlife crossings, with over 20 more planned for design in future projects. Pat was the driving force in helping MDT sponsor more than $1 million of various post-construction research projects evaluating the efficacy of constructed wildlife crossings. He's worked on over five miles of stream restoration associated with MDT projects, and more than 70 acres of wetland mitigation. He is the recipient of national and multiple state awards, including Biologist of the Year from the Montana Chapter of The Wildlife Society in He is now a senior biologist at Jacobs Engineering, in Denver, Colo. Currently Pat is working for Jacobs and its partners, Eco-resolutions and Conservation Science Partners, to conduct the West Slope Wildlife Prioritization Study contracted through the Colorado Department of Transportation and Colorado Parks and Wildlife. Julia Kintsch is Senior Ecologist and Principal at ECO-resolutions. She specializes in transportation ecology, wildlife connectivity, and the collaborative processes needed to achieve conservation objectives across large landscapes. In 2008, Julia launched ECO-resolutions to work directly with transportation and wildlife agencies in planning and designing for landscape connectivity, including wildlife linkage analysis, mitigation design, and effectiveness monitoring. Michelle Cowardin has been with Colorado Parks and Wildlife since 2002 and has worked as a wildlife biologist out of the Hot Sulphur Springs office for the past 12 years. In 2011, Michelle became the lead biologist on the State Highway 9 wildlife and safety improvement project, which consists of 13 wildlife crossing structures including two wildlife overpasses and five underpasses. In addition to working extensively with the Colorado Department of Transportation during the design and construction phases, Michelle is also one of the project leads for the five-year SH9 effectiveness monitoring study. Michelle s other wildlife duties include managing and monitoring species such as greater sage-grouse, Columbian sharp-tailed grouse, raptors and other species of concern. Dr. Kerry R. Foresman is Emeritus Professor of Biology and Wildlife Biology at the University of Montana, retiring in 2013 after 35 years. His research focuses on the ecology of small mammals (shrews, bats, rodents) and mid-level carnivores (American marten, fisher, river otters, swift fox) and he is the author of Mammals of Montana, the first comprehensive, illustrated account of ecology, behavior, distribution and reproduction of all Montana mammals. He has worked extensively in Southeast Asia, particularly the Tibetan Plateau of China, the mountains of Taiwan, and Bhutan. Since 2001 he has been developing methods to enhance safe movement of small mammal species across highway corridors and has created a company, Critter Crossing TM Technology that addresses these concerns.

7 Hillary White is a wildlife ecologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Mountain-Prairie Region. She serves as a liaison between the Western Golden Eagle Team and the Division of Migratory Bird Management to engage USFWS staff and Partners in the use, development, and refinement of products and conservation strategies to minimize threats and mitigate impacts to Golden Eagles in the western U.S. Hillary is a certified senior ecologist endorsed by the Ecological Society of America. She earned a master s degree in Ecology from Utah State University and a bachelor s degree in Conservation Biology from the University of New Mexico. Hillary has 18 years of experience working on avian research, conservation planning, and wildlife habitat restoration in both the public and private sectors. Korby Mintken is a senior biologist with Pinyon Environmental. He works mainly on transportation projects within the state of Colorado in a variety of roles, from field data collection to agency coordination. During his academic and professional career, Korby has mainly focused on wildlife-related topics, such as wildlife movement and compliance with the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Endangered Species Act. Bill Rudd has worked with the Wyoming Migration Initiative (WMI) since 2012 when he co-founded the WMI with Dr. Matt Kauffman. He has a Master s Degree from the University of Wyoming where he studied elk migrations in and around Yellowstone National Park. Bill also has a BS degree from the University of Idaho. He retired with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department in 2011 after a 30-year career where he worked as a biologist, Wildlife Management Coordinator, and Deputy Chief for the Wildlife Division. Bill has extensive experience working with stakeholders relating to a wide-range of wildlife issues including big game management, population estimation, endangered species management, and wildlife /transportation issues. Bill was very involved in wildlife research efforts for the Game and Fish and has extensive knowledge of the landscapes and wildlife issues of Wyoming.