Student Molly Parren, Daniel Barton, and Barbara Clucas Wildlife Molly Parren, MS graduate in Wildlife, published results from her MS thesis research, "Drought and coyotes mediate mesopredator response to human disturbance" in the ESA open-access journal Ecosphere, co-authored with Cal Poly Humboldt faculty Drs. Daniel Barton and Barbara Clucas and CDFW scientists Dr. Brett Furnas and Misty Nelson. This work addressed how California's extreme drought and coyotes in 2013-16 influenced interactions between bobcats, kit foxes, raccoons, and human disturbance at 585 study sites throught California's Central Valley and Mojave Deserts.

Student Logan Hysen Wildlife Logan Hysen, M.S. student from the Department of Wildlife, was selected to be the recipient of a $1,000 scholarship given by the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of the California Association of Environmental Professionals. The scholarship supports students pursuing a career in the environmental field. Logan is conducting research on environmental impacts on northern spotted owl for his thesis.

Student Logan Hysen, Danial Nayeri, Ho Yi Wan Wildlife In Summer 2022, Logan Hysen and Danial Nayeri, graduate students of the Wildlife Department, were awarded a $1,000 research grant from the California North Coast Chapter of the Wildlife Society. This grant will be used to conduct a pilot research on northern spotted owl prey species in recently burned forest landscapes. They will be conducting the research under the supervision of Dr. Ho Yi Wan.

Faculty Frank Fogarty Wildlife Frank Fogarty (Wildlife) and colleagues developed a novel community model to examine how habitat area and its fragmentation affect breeding bird communities in the Great Basin desert. Their work was publish in Ecological Applications and can be accessed with the following citation:

Fogarty, Frank A., Yen, Jian D. L., Fleishman, Erica, Sollmann, Rahel, and Ke, Alison. 2022. “ Multiple-Region, N-Mixture Community Model to Assess Associations of Riparian Area, Fragmentation, and Species Richness.” Ecological Applications e2698. https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.2698

Faculty Frank Fogarty and Ho Yi Wan Wildlife Dr. Frank Fogarty and Dr. Ho Yi Wan received a $89,000 grant from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) to support research into the habitat requirements of Lewis’s Woodpecker, a woodpecker species that are the top priority Oregon Conservation Strategy species for the East Cascades. The project will examine the relationship of habitat variables, including wildfire and vegetation, on Lewis's Woodpecker populations in the Oregon East Cascades. Findings will help managers better understand the declining species, and inform efforts to maintain or restore suitable habitat. Collaborators will include ODFW biologist Kalysta Adkins and the East Cascades Audubon Society.

Faculty Matthew Johnson Wildlife Dr. Matthew Johnson received a grant from the CSU Agricultural Research Institute to support a study on whether the criteria for Wildlife Conscious Certification (WCC), a new eco-label being developed for cannabis farms, truly benefit wildlife. Dr. Johnson’s project will implement WCC-recommended habitat enhancements on cannabis farms, and examine their impact via wildlife surveys. Project collaborators include Jackee Riccio (Executive Director, Cannabis for Conservation) and Wildlife Associate Professor, Dr. Barbara Clucas.

Faculty Ho Yi Wan Wildlife Dr. Ho Yi Wan and his lab were featured on The Wildlife Professional, the flagship magazine of The Wildlife Society. The article spotlights Dr. Wan's career path and his advocacy in advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion. View article here: https://bit.ly/WAN_TWP2022

Student Adam Mohr, Jon Ewanyk, Owen Hardy, Justin Windsor, Erin Zulliger, Carrington Hilson, Micaela Szykman Gunther, William T Bean Wildlife

Graduate students in Dr. Tim Bean's class on advanced spatial modeling produced a manuscript from a class project recently published in the Wildlife Society Bulletin entitled "A multi-metric movement model for identifying elk parturition events".

Faculty Nicholas Kerhoulas (Wildlife) / Lucy Kerhoulas (Forestry & Wildland Resources)) Wildlife

Dr. Nicholas Kerhoulas and Dr. Lucy Kerhoulas have been awarded a $25,000 grant from the Save The Redwoods League to support their research on the distribution and abundance of the Sonoma tree vole, a rodent species that is both endemic to California and a California Species of Special Concern. Their study will determine if restoration thinning and/or the use of nesting platforms affect Sonoma tree vole abundance, and compare Sonoma tree vole abundance and genetic diversity between primary and second-growth redwood forests. Project findings will help inform land management and conservation practices.

Faculty Ho Yi Wan and Danial Nayeri Wildlife

Dr. Ho Yi Wan and his MS student, Danial Nayeri, published the article, "Comparison of habitat suitability and connectivity modelling for three carnivores of conservation concern in an Iranian montane landscape" in Landscape Ecology. Other authors of the article include Alireza Mohammadi, Kamran Almasieh, and Mohammad Ali Adibi. This study increases our understanding of the efficacy of protected areas in protecting corridors and connectivity for carnivores in Iran.

The article is available here:
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-021-01386-5

Staff Seafha Ramos Wildlife

Dr. Seafha Ramos, NSF Postdoctoral Fellow in Biology, hosted in the Wildlife Department, published an article, "Understanding Yurok traditional ecological knowledge and wildlife management" the Journal of Wildlife Management.

The paper can be found at https://wildlife.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jwmg.22140.

A media story by The Wildlife Society can be found at: https://wildlife.org/jwm-integrating-yurok-knowledge-and-wildlife-management/?fbclid=IwAR2QwFZq9PPjyE2ZyGI4JlDW7P41_IMw2QhKCLlr-Q1Fgjf

Student Allison Huysman and Matt Johnson Wildlife

Former graduate student Allison Huysman and advisor Matt Johnson (wildlife) published a paper in Ecology & Evolution. The paper documents how barn owls responded to wildfires in Napa Valley.
https://wildlife.humboldt.edu/sites/default/files/johnson/pdf/huysman_j…

Student Brooks Estes, Matt Johnson Wildlife

Former Environment & Community Master's student Brooks Estes and her advisor Dr. Matt Johnson (Wildlife) recently published a paper in the journal California Fish and Wildlife about winegrape growers' environmental values. URL: https://nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FileHandler.ashx?DocumentID=195584&inline

Faculty Dan Barton Wildlife

A new cooperative grant from the Bureau of Land Management to HSU will support graduate students working with Wildlife faculty member Dan Barton to study conservation of seabirds and the Trinidad Seabird Protection Network around Trinidad Head and Sue-Meg over the next three years.

Faculty Dan Barton Wildlife

Working with colleagues from four other institutions around the country, Wildlife faculty member Dan Barton co-organized and facilitated a workshop "Active Learning in the Wildlife Classroom: Engaging students beyond the field" with 30 participants at the annual meeting of The Wildlife Society in early November 2021.

Student Janelle Chojnacki Wildlife

Wildlife graduate student Janelle Chojnacki has received a grant from The Nuttall Ornithological Club to fund her research into the foraging behavior of common ravens, and their predator impact on the western snowy plover, a federally threatened bird. The project aims to address the causal factors related to increased raven abundance and proximity to plover nesting areas to provide conservation practitioners with useful information for identifying key areas to focus mitigation efforts. Results will be applicable to other prey species throughout ravens’ range in North America.

Chojnacki received the award working in collaboration with her graduate advisor, Dr. Barbara Clucas.

Faculty Frank Fogarty Wildlife

Frank Fogarty (Wildlife) published a new paper demonstrating that observational data can be useful for predicting songbird nest sites in Ibis. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ibi.13020

Faculty Micaela Szykman Gunther Wildlife

HSU Wildlife Professor Dr. Micaela Szykman Gunther has received a grant from the Humboldt County Fish and Game Commission to support ongoing research into the diets of two local at-risk species, the Humboldt marten and fisher, and their predators. The project aims to analyze diet data to help inform land management practices that may benefit the two species, and to understand predator impact that will further help land managers and conservationists.

Project collaborators include Dr. Katie Moriarty (National Council for Air and Stream Improvement), graduate students Alyssa Roddy and Erika Anderson, and two undergraduate students.

Faculty Frank Fogarty Wildlife

Frank Fogarty (Wildlife) published a new paper on utilizing point count data to estimate the abundance of mobile animals in Ecological Indicators. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1470160X21008359

Student Allison Huysman, Matt Johnson Wildlife

Allison Huysman and Matt Johnson (Wildlife) published a paper entitled, “Multi-year nest box occupancy and short-term resilience to wildfire disturbance by barn owls in a vineyard agroecosystem” in the journal Ecosphere.