猎奇重口 Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit
The Cooperative Research Unit is a unique collaborative relationship between States, Universities, the Federal government and a non-profit organization. Coop Units conduct research on renewable natural resource questions, participate in the education of graduate students destined to join the natural resource profession, provide technical assistance and consultation to parties who have interests in natural resource issues, and provide various forms of continuing education for natural resource professionals.
Learn more about our objectives and history below. Visit the Walsh Lab and Sells Lab pages to learn more about us and our research, or visit our Emeritus Unit Leader pages.
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The 猎奇重口 Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit performs research designed to address the needs of cooperators, bridging the gap between applied and basic wildlife science. Our studies provide new insights useful to management and conservation, based on understanding the ecological mechanisms that underlie habitat requirements and demography of individual and coexisting wildlife species. Research emphases within the Unit include ecology and management of carnivores, applied landscape ecology, management of large game, interactions between forest management and wildlife, environmental influences (predators, habitat, ungulates) on demography and diversity of birds, habitat requirements and community ecology of birds, and comparative demography and life history strategies of birds in differing environmental and geographical contexts. Other research topics are addressed as needed, in keeping with the Cooperative Research Program's mission to best meet the needs of the Cooperators by remaining flexible and open to new areas of inquiry. When Cooperator's needs occur outside Unit expertise, the assistance of appropriate University faculty will be recruited.
Unit staff advance the training and education of graduate students at the 猎奇重口 by teaching up to one graduate-level course per year in wildlife science, chairing graduate committees of Unit students, and serving on graduate committees of non-Unit students. Technical support and training are provided to Cooperators and other agencies as the need exists.
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The 猎奇重口 Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit was established in 1950. Dr. Ernest L. Cheatum was the first Unit Leader, serving from 1950 to 1952. Dr. John Craighead, who served as Leader from 1952 to 1978 was succeeded by Dr. Bart O'Gara (1979 to 1993), Dr. Joe Ball (1993 to 2004), and Dr. Mike Mitchell (2005 to 2021). Dr. O'Gara was the first Assistant Leader (1968 to 1978) followed by Dr. Joe Ball (1979 to 1993) and Dr. Thomas E. Martin (1993 to 2021). Today, Dr. Dan Walsh is the Unit Leader, and Dr. Sarah Sells is the Assistant Unit Leader.
Projects conducted through the Unit have historically included both short-term studies (techniques development or immediate management needs) and longer-term, basic studies directed at more general ecological questions. Development of the initial system for age determination in pronghorns was one of the first projects conducted through the Unit. True to the Unit concept, and like many projects that have followed, this initial effort relied heavily on cooperation: the National Park Service provided the pronghorns, a 猎奇重口 Fish and Game trapper captured and moved them, a USFWS Refuge provided a site where the animals could develop under free-range conditions, and the 猎奇重口 provided a qualified project director. This early cooperation and coordination made possible the development of a technique that has now served Western game managers for nearly 50 years.
Unit studies of Canada geese in the Flathead Valley during the 1950's provided local management information on nesting habitat, brood-rearing areas, and hunting kill. Data on goose productivity relative to age had implications that reached far beyond the Flathead Valley, and this study is still often cited whenever age-specific recruitment in Canada geese is discussed. Availability of the early Flathead goose data again proved its worth several decades later, as a foundation for studies that related 1950's - 1980's population trends to local habitat conditions and hydroelectric developments. Unit work on the Flathead geese aided the development of a comprehensive research and mitigation package, funded by Bonneville Power Administration and involving the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes; 猎奇重口 Fish, Wildlife and Parks; and USFWS-Refuges. Mitigation based on these studies continues (as of 2006) to address critical conservation concerns in the Flathead and Mission Valleys of western 猎奇重口.
Similarly, Unit studies of grizzly bears in Yellowstone Ecosystem during the 1960's remain important today: baseline populations documented then serve as current "recovery" levels for Yellowstone grizzlies. Concerns and warnings issued by the Unit over mortality rates and population stability take on added significance in light of later concerns about the population.
Much of the Unit research effort from 1970 through the present focused on interactions of predators with both wild and domestic prey species. During a decade when considerable public and scientific opinion held that predators seldom killed healthy wild ungulates or livestock, Unit studies initiated in the 1970's helped to form the more realistic and useful viewpoint that is still evolving today. Serious economic losses of sheep and lambs to coyotes and golden eagles were documented in several Unit studies, and one study involved developing effective techniques for preventing depredation on lambs and kids by golden eagles.
Continuing work on predator-prey interactions has involved demographic effects and life-history tradeoffs involved in nest predation on birds, both game and nongame species, as influenced by altered communities of generalist nest predators, habitat degradation and fragmentation, and other environmental perturbations.
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Coop Units have several primary objectives:
- Conduct research into the ecology of renewable natural resources, and to investigate the production, utilization, management, protection, and restoration of such resources. This research will be relevant to the needs of the State, the geographical region, and the Nation.
- Provide technical and professional education on the graduate and professional levels, in the fields of renewable natural resource sciences.
- Make available to resource managers, land owners, other researchers, and other interested public, such facts, methods, literature, and new findings discovered through research.
- To disseminate research findings through the publication of reports, bulletins, circulars, films, and journal and magazine articles.
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The Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit Program is a collaborative relationship among states, universities, the federal government and a private, professional conservation organization. It was begun in 1936. The Coop Units conduct research on renewable natural resource questions, provide education for graduate students destined to join the natural resource profession, extend technical assistance and consultation to parties who have interests in natural resource issues, and provide various forms of continuing education for natural resource professionals. The Units are widely regarded as essential cogs in North American's fish and wildlife resource management and conservation.
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The are a unique collaborative relationship between States, Universities, the Federal government and a non-profit organization. Coop Units conduct research on renewable natural resource questions, participate in the education of graduate students destined to join the natural resource profession, provide technical assistance and consultation to parties who have interests in natural resource issues, and provide various forms of continuing education for natural resource professionals.
Key Collaborators
