Laramie resident and doctorate’s student at the University of Wyoming, Beth A. Fitzpatrick, has been selected as a 2017 award winner of The Animal Welfare Institutes annual Christine Stevens Wildlife Award for studying the effectiveness of noninvasive methods to monitor greater sage-grouse populations.
Established in 2006, the Christine Stevens Wildlife Award provides grants of up to $10,000 to help fund innovative strategies for humane, non-lethal wildlife conflict management and study.
“I was honored in receiving the award and just really excited to be back in the lab,” Fitzpatrick said.
Beth joined the university in 2011 and conducts research for the program in ecology. She has been working on the noninvasive monitor methods of sage-grouse populations with fellow PhD candidate Aaron Pratt and Associate Professors Jeff Beck and Melanie Murphy all in the Department of Ecosystem Science and Management, and the program in ecology.
“My research is looking at the distribution of lands which are sage-grouse breeding sites and gene flow in relation to the environmental characteristics across the landscapes,” Fitzpatrick said. “Specifically, we are looking at how development affects the environment and connectivity and potentially being able to use that to prioritize where we might do sage-grouse gustation.”
She added that she is interested in many aspects of ecological research with a focus on population and community ecology. More specifically, her research addresses species habitat/landscape relationships in areas of development.
Her work area for research is in northern Wyoming with a focus on the Big Horn Basin.
“Anytime you are doing research on a declining species, you have to weigh out the pros and cons of how you answer specific question and in the past years these non-invasive techniques have allowed us to answer some research queries.” She said.
For sage-grouses mostly trapping and radio collaring have been put into use now.
Fitzpatrick also received an award of $10,000, which will partially go into supporting her and her lab work.
The Christine Stevens Wildlife Award is a grant program named in honor of AWI’s late founder and president for over 50 years, to honor her legacy and inspire a new generation of compassionate wildlife scientists, managers, and advocates.
For over half a century, Stevens dedicated her life to reducing animal suffering both here and abroad. She founded AWI in 1951 to end the cruel treatment of animals in experimental laboratories.
Inevitably, her work expanded to take on other animal welfare causes, including preventing animal extinctions, reforming methods used to raise animals for food, banning steel-jaw leg hold traps, ending commercial whaling and much more.
Other candidates who were also awarded with this in the grant are Dr. Stewart Breck of the USDA’s National Wildlife Research Center and Colorado State University, Dr. Elizabeth Burgess of the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life, Dr. Rachel Graham of MarAlliance, Jason Holmberg of Wild Me and Dr. Andrea Morehouse of Waterton Biosphere Reserve
“AWI offers its hearty congratulations to the recipients of this year’s grants. We are pleased to support these innovative projects to find more humane methods to prevent conflicts between wild animals and humans and for the study of wildlife,” president of AWI, Cathy Liss said. “We are encouraged by the increasing advancements being made to address wildlife conflict issues and methodologies to study wildlife in a humane, forward-thinking, practical, and publicly acceptable way and look forward to reporting on the outcomes of these projects in the future.”
Fitzpatrick said, “I love doing applied science like working with stake holders and other wildlife managers, so I would like to continue doing research in this sector.”
