WEST Publication: Grizzly bear behavior in south-central Alaska: Use of a hidden Markov model to assess behavior
WEST Consulting Biologist Amanda Mumford is the lead author on the recently published research article, “Grizzly bear behavior in south-central Alaska: Use of a hidden Markov model to assess behavior,” published in URSUS- International Association for Bear Research and Management. The study in south-central Alaska examined how environmental and human factors influence grizzly bear behavior, […]
Bat Week | Meet the Experts | Juliet Nagel
I fell in love with bats during a tropical ecology course during my undergraduate degree. While traveling in Costa Rica, we were lucky enough to visit a research center where they were mist-netting bats. I had never seen a bat up close before, and the fruit bats with striped faces, nectar bats with crazy long […]
Bat Week | Meet the Experts | Brenna Hyzy
1) What got you into bats or brought you to WEST? I studied abroad in college when I was 19 and worked on an invasive mongoose project. The professor leading that project was a bat biologist. I was badly bitten by one of the mongoose harem males (which apparently impressed her) and she invited me […]
Bat Week | Meet the Experts | Kaitlyn Torrey
1) What got you into bats or brought you to WEST? I first got interested in bats during undergrad while taking mammalogy and just thought they were the coolest animals, and when I found out about white-nose syndrome impacting bats I knew I had to get into bat conservation somehow. 2) What you love most […]
Bat Week | Meet the Experts | Larisa Bishop-Boros
What got you into bats or brought you to WEST? White-nose syndrome first struck North American bats in 2006 in upstate New York near where I was completing undergraduate research, so I was inspired to apply for National Science Foundation funding to study survey techniques for these aerial acrobats and the rest was history. Also, […]
WEST Publication: Dynamic soaring decouples dynamic body acceleration and energetics in albatross
WEST Senior Biologist Melinda Conners on our offshore team is lead author on the recently published research article, Dynamic soaring decouples dynamic body acceleration and energetics in albatross, published in the Journal of Experimental Biology. This paper describes flight costs of two species of dynamic soaring birds: black-browed and grey-headed #albatrosses from the Southern Ocean. […]
Bat Week | Meet the Experts | Richard Novy
What got you into bats or brought you to WEST? While I was getting my undergraduate degree, one of my professors bought some bat detectors and didn’t know how to use them. She asked me to figure them out and work with the Wisconsin DNR on their monitoring project as part of a semester project. […]
WEST Publication: Successful pollinator seed mixes include low grass density and high forb richness across a range of total seeding densities
WEST Consulting Biologist Bethanne Bruninga-Socolar, PhD is a co-author of the recently published research article, “Successful pollinator seed mixes include low grass density and high forb richness across a range of total seeding densities,” published in Restoration Ecology, The Journal of the Society for Ecological Restoration. Restoring pollinator habitats by planting wildflowers helps combat pollinator […]
WEST Detection Dogs
How is using detection dogs more efficient than traditional methods? Detection dogs rely largely on olfaction to locate a target of interest with their superior sense of smell. Unlike humans, cameras, or other techniques that locate targets primarily through vision, detection dogs locate elusive, small, and concealed targets at greater distances —and often in less […]
WEST Publication: Novel approach to estimating avian mortality from vehicle–bird collisions on U.S. roads
Paul Rabie (WEST Principal Statistician), Melissa Welsch (WEST Consulting Biologist), Nancy Stone (WEST Associate Data Scientist), and Clayton Derby (WEST CEO) are authors on the recently published article, Novel approach to estimating avian mortality from vehicle–bird collisions on U.S. roads, published in the Journal of Field Ornithology. A study based on driver-reported collisions from 2020 […]