News - February 2021

A senior javelin thrower on the men’s track and field team, Alejandro Collins is passionate about environmentalism and human rights, which he attributes partly to growing up in Latin America. He follows the motto “more than my sport,” meaning that life is greater than sports. “We all need to set priorities and live every day by what we want to accomplish in life.” Fun fact about me: I practically have a jungle in my house. Taking care of my…

A rare study shows how one of Georgia’s barrier islands provides a safe haven for gopher tortoises and gives researchers at the University of Georgia evidence to prove species relocation is an effective conservation tool. Georgia’s state reptile is one of the most threatened vertebrates. Numerous causes include annual low reproduction rates, habitat lost to development, and a vulnerable size prior to maturity that can render the species at…

Amid the serenity of Arkansas’ Ozark Mountains, a storm is brewing. But rather than feeding the region’s lakes and rivers, it’s thundering through forests and valleys and entangling the region’s deer population along the way. As a result, many of the region’s deer suffer from chronic wasting disease, an incurable disease that means a death sentence for any animal that contracts it. Although much is known about the effects of this incurable…

If part of being successful is asking the right questions, then Shelda Owens got off to an early start. In middle school, inspired by a television show that featured daring mountain rescues, she wrote a letter to the U.S. Forest Service to learn more about working in forestry. The Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, native knew she liked being outside and was curious what a career in forestry might look like. Well, according to the response to her…

Download:  https://kaltura.uga.edu/downloadmedia/index/download/flavorid/1_6ptg1c4x

 The jungles of southern Mexico are a far cry from cattle ranches of the American West. And yet, when biologists head into the forests in search of lizards, they borrow a technique used by cowboys for hundreds of years: They lasso them. While the materials (and animals) are different, the philosophy is the same: Tie a slip knot onto a string, pass the loop over a lizard’s head and give it a soft tug. But until recently, people never called…

As a graduate student, Ashley Turner (MS ’05) cut her teeth in game management by studying red-tailed hawks inhabiting the historic quail hunting grounds of the Jones Center at Ichauway. Her first job after graduating was a good fit, managing for game populations at the sprawling W.C. Bradley Farms outside Columbus, Georgia. But in the past decade or so, her expertise has grown wider and deeper, encompassing agricultural practices and…

As a high school student, Brian Simmons (BSFR ’93) landed a summer job at a local fish farm. It began as a way to earn some cash, but then Simmons began to meet other professionals—including Jay Shelton, who at the time was working for UGA Extension’s Griffin office. He kept with the job through his early years at Middle Georgia College, and began working there full-time after graduating from Warnell. Turns out, that high school job was a great…

On its surface, the timber industry can seem simple: Trees grow, they’re harvested, they’re replanted. But if you dig a little deeper, you uncover layers of intricacies. There are state and federal policies, international influences, asset distributions, planning, data collection and more. It’s these details that inspire Yenie Tran (BBA ’02, PHD ’15), allowing her to fully embrace the field and her role as senior economic analyst at Resource…

There are three words that can create anxiety in the mind of any wildlife professional or researcher: trail camera survey. After decades of managing and consulting for private hunting lands, Rans Thomas (BSFR ’99) knew this feeling all too well. Trail camera surveys, a method for understanding wildlife populations and creating management plans, are tedious and inefficient largely due to the manual process of viewing thousands of images,…