The National Deer Association is pleased to announce Dr. Steve Demarais from Mississippi State University's Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Aquaculture as the 2022 Joe Hamilton Lifetime Achievement Award winner. This award is presented to a person who has dedicated their life and/or career to wildlife management in general, and deer management in particular. The recipient must also have made a significant impact in deer management, deer ...
While the U.S. and Canada have lost approximately a quarter of bird life—or 2.9 billion breeding adult birds—since 1970, Mississippi State researchers are finding ways to improve working forests for avian conservation.
Two-thirds of Mississippi, or approximately 19.2 million acres, is forestland. The state's working forests support a $13.8 billion forestry and forest products industry. A new partnership, the Tombigbee Forest ...
A Mississippi State College of Forest Resources graduate student has taken advantage of a recent opportunity to study feral swine as a fellow for a leading conservation agency, and his work has focused on developing a prioritization tool for feral swine control across the Southeast's 108 national wildlife refuges.
Tyler Evans, a wildlife, fisheries and aquaculture doctoral student, was selected as a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Dir...
A Mississippi State doctoral student in the Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Aquaculture is being honored with an award from the nation's oldest and most selective collegiate honor society.
Rebecca Bracken, who soon will defend her dissertation, is one of 200 Phi Kappa Phi members nationally to receive its annual Love of Learning Award, a $500 post-baccalaureate professional development grant. Bracken was first inducted into P...
Freshmen entering their first year of college may sometimes feel like a deer caught in headlights. That wasn't the case for Nathan Cowley, who enrolled at Mississippi State with a laser-sharp focus.
Cowley, a rising sophomore wildlife, fisheries and aquaculture major, has always set his sights on ambitious personal and career goals. When deciding on a career path, he knew he wanted to foster his passion for hunting and fishing. When ...
Taylor Gibson, currently pursuing a master's degree in the Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Aquaculture, was raised with curiosity and respect for wildlife and fishing. As a child, he dreamed of becoming a marine biologist, but as he grew older, he realized his true passion is waterfowl.
After graduating from Mississippi State with a wildlife, fisheries and aquaculture bachelor's degree, Gibson went to work. He worked with Ducks...
As the State Land Mammal of Mississippi, white-tailed deer is the South's most significant wildlife species. The important economic and cultural resource contributes to Mississippi's $1.14 billion-dollar hunting industry, with an estimated 280,000 deer harvested each year. FWRC researchers seek to determine how weather and disease impact deer populations so the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks, or MDWFP, can make inform...
For Coahoma County native Troy Lindsey, life on the water is both a pastime and a career. Growing up fishing and hunting in the Mississippi Delta—the birthplace of America's catfish industry—little did he know his hobby would parlay into a profession. Lindsey grew up in various towns that dot the Mississippi Delta, including Roam and Tutwiler, where he graduated from West Tallahatchie High School. He went on to Coahoma Community Co...
Mississippi State University is accepting a national award for its partnership in a large-scale sustainability project.
Kristine Evans, assistant professor in MSU's Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Aquaculture, has been leading a team of MSU faculty and partnering agencies in a multiyear Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Units project titled "Strategic Conservation Assessment of Gulf Coast Landscapes." The work is this year's winne...
It's been a dozen years since the "Hudson Bay Miracle" made history with an emergency landing of a passenger plane after it collided with a flock of Canada geese during takeoff. To prevent such hazardous incidents, airport biologists strive to mitigate aircraft-wildlife strikes. Knowing what is inhabiting the landscape and monitoring that wildlife in a common way among airports is essential for informing mitigation efforts.
Traditional...
A Mississippi State faculty member with more than a decade of research and service in wildlife, fisheries, aquaculture and land conservation is adding an administrative role to her responsibilities.
Kristine Evans, associate professor in the College of Forest Resources, is now serving as the associate director for MSU's Geosystems Research Institute.
"Kristine has built important relationships with favorable leadership cap...
Whether in Japan or Turkey or Germany, Namia Stevenson has always felt at home abroad.
Stevenson's parents were in the U.S. Air Force, and she spent much of her childhood outside the U.S. She considers Bitburg, Germany, her hometown because that's where she spent the most time growing up.
The wildlife, fisheries and aquaculture master's student studies frogs and toads in MSU's Conservation Physiology Lab. Her interest was p...
A cohort of graduate scholars from around the country have converged at Mississippi State for several weeks to gain high-performance computing skills through a summer research experience program.
MSU and the U.S. Department of Agriculture created the MSU/USDA Graduate Summer Research Experience Program for scholars to apply high-performance computing resources to a variety of research projects across multiple agricultural disciplines...
A new book by a Mississippi State wildlife, fisheries and aquaculture professor emeritus recollects hunting and fishing in the South.
Donald Jackson's "A Sportsman's Journey," published by the University Press of Mississippi, is his fourth book and explores the connections between man and his environment.
Jackson, who continues teaching Principles of Fisheries Management in the College of Forest Resources, said he hopes rea...
For the last three years, Mississippi Power, Mississippi State University and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have partnered on a banding project to help track eaglets that hatch at the Mississippi Sandhill Crane Refuge in Gautier.
Back in early March, the project entered a new phase when a transmitter with GPS tracking was placed on an eagle. This allowed researchers to track the birds wherever they fly, teaching invaluable lesso...
Mississippi State Professor of Wildlife Ecology and Management Steve Demarais is being honored as the university's 2022 Southeastern Conference Faculty Achievement Award recipient.
Demarais, the Taylor Chair in Applied Big Game Research and Instruction in MSU's Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Aquaculture, also is co-director of the MSU Deer Ecology and Management Laboratory. He is one of 14 faculty members from SEC universities...
For Morgan Alexander and Makayla Brister, recent CFR alumni and proud creators of Instagram's "Culture and Conservation" account, the conversation about conservation is one that infiltrates their whole lives. However, the aim of "Culture and Conservation" is to create an all-inclusive space that engages its followers with the natural world and demonstrates how we're all impacted by conservation.
Alexander and Brister, two Black women wh...
Whether it's nutrition, genetics, habitat or population health—or even disease—scientists in Mississippi State University's Deer Lab not only research best management practices, but also work to make informed recommendations to hunters.
CWD, or chronic wasting disease, was first detected in the state in February 2018. Mississippi now has two CWD management zones across 14 of Mississippi's 82 counties. In early fall of thi...
Steve Demarais, MSU Deer Lab co-director and the Taylor Chair in Applied Big Game Research and Instruction, has been fascinated with white-tailed deer since high school.
"I've been an enthusiastic deer hunter since my teens and harvested my first deer while in college," he said.
The Attleboro, Massachusetts, native developed a love of wildlife at a young age.
"I grew up enjoying hunting and fishing and also enjoyed bi...
A Mississippi State researcher is part of a historic scientific consortium presenting its findings on the Amazon River Basin at the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP26, in Glasgow, United Kingdom.
Assistant Professor Sandra B. Correa in the College of Forest Resources' Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Aquaculture, is part of the Science Panel for the Amazon, or SPA, a group of over 200 prominent scientists wh...
Two Mississippi State University faculty are being honored for support of an MSU guardsman in ceremonies on Veteran's Day.
Andy Kouba, professor and head of the Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Aquaculture, and Chad Dacus, Extension instructor and director of the Wildlife Services National Training Academy, both were recognized with the Patriot Award, a U.S. Department of Defense program that recognizes supervisors for their sup...
While Amy Blaylock is the first woman to serve as the Mississippi Wildlife Bureau director for the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks (MDWFP), it's a role familiar to someone who practically grew up in the agency.
"I've grown up with the wildlife bureau and the people within it," Blaylock said. "My dad, Larry Castle, was a district biologist, deer program coordinator, wildlife bureau director, and retired as dire...
As Mississippi hunters wonder where all the bucks have gone, Mississippi State University Deer Lab scientists are looking for answers.
White-tailed deer hunting is big business in the Magnolia State, annually contributing almost $1 billion to the Mississippi economy. This time-honored tradition is why hunters and researchers keep a watchful eye out for the elusive, antlered mammal. In recent years, a noticeable number of bucks have s...
From the arid fields of New Mexico to the winter-flooded rice fields of the Mississippi Delta, Alexandra Firth has developed a passion at the intersection of agriculture and soil conservation.
After graduating with a degree in ecology from Humboldt State in Northern California, the Phoenix native's career as a biological technician took her all over the U.S. and briefly to Europe. It was while working on an organic farm in New Mexico, h...
Rising Mississippi State wildlife, fisheries and aquaculture junior and Memphis, Tennessee, native Thomas Rovery has always had a curiosity for reptiles, with a particular interest in snakes.
"As a kid, I was always outside, pointing out camouflaged snakes, trying to identify lizards in the grass or showing off a turtle I'd found," Rovery said.
In high school, he discovered a way to satisfy his curiosity while also gaining ...
A Mississippi State professor in the College of Forest Resources is being recognized with a prestigious applied research award by the nation's premier wildlife science organization.
Professor Steve Demarais is the recipient of the Caesar Kleberg Award for Excellence in Applied Wildlife Research from The Wildlife Society. He will be honored at the group's annual conference held virtually November 1-5.
This Caesar Kleberg Wil...
Power companies across the nation spend millions of dollars each year repairing and replacing utility poles damaged by woodpeckers. Researchers in the Forest and Wildlife Research Center are putting their heads together to develop a predictive map of where such damages will likely occur, giving power companies a proactive and cheaper way to head off damage before the pecking even begins.
The Tennessee Valley Authority keeps the lights o...
A Mississippi State-led study using "citizen science" is entering its second year of data collection that ultimately could yield solutions to vulture-aircraft collisions.
MSU College of Forest Resources Associate Professor Scott Rush said he expects to deliver scientific-based recommendations from the analysis to mitigate this human-wildlife conflict, a frequent challenge for military pilots who encounter the birds during take-off, l...
There is a common misconception in the hunting world that plentiful food supply equals frequent visits by white-tailed deer or wild turkey to a specific habitat. Hunters plant food plots, place spin feeders, yet don't see the wildlife activity for which they had planned. What is missing from the equation is an equally important factor…cover.
Much like an animal needs food and water, they also need adequate shelter. That is why res...
Mississippi State researchers are discovering that opening hotels—fish hotels—for 'checking in' on imperiled, hard-to-find aquatic species is a valuable business.
Built specifically for frecklebelly madtom catfish, MSU fisheries biologists are seeing that the new housing aids them in studying the freshwater species for more effective conservation strategies.
Averaging under four inches in length and native to ri...
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