People of the Carnivore Coexistence Lab
Advice to prospective or beginning students on research topics
Adrian Treves, Ph.D., Associate professor and Founder of the Carnivore Coexistence Lab
Mailing Address:
30a Science Hall
550 N. Park Street
Madison, WI 53706
Phone: (608) 890-1450
Fax: (608) 262-2273
Postdoctoral Research Associates
Christine Browne-Nuñez, Ph.D.
Christine received her Ph.D. in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation from the University of Florida, where she completed her dissertation on predictors of attitudes and behaviors toward elephants around Amboseli National Park, Kenya. Her interests span the broad field of Human Dimensions and include the application of social science theory and research methods to understanding human thought and action as they relate to natural resource issues, understanding and managing human-wildlife conflict, and environmental education and communication. Christine is currently a post-doctoral research associate studying the influence of wolf management policy on social tolerance of wolves in Wisconsin.
Graduate Students
Stephanie Dolrenry, Ph.D. candidate
Stephanie Dolrenry is a field biologist who has spent the past fifteen years in a variety of biomes, across the US, the Bahamas, Hawaii and, for the past 6 years, Kenyan Maasailand. Her research in Kenya focuses on the behavioral ecology of large carnivores, namely lions and spotted hyenas, living in human and livestock-dominated areas. She is interested in the development and implementation of non-invasive and local knowledge-based monitoring techniques to study behaviors and mitigate conflicts of elusive and persecuted carnivore populations. Stephanie's research is funded through a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship as well as a Panthera Kaplan Graduate Award.
Becky Zug, Ph.D. candidate, M.S. 2009
Becky's research focuses on carnivore conservation and human-wildlife conflict in the Ecuadorian Andes. She was awarded her M.S. thesis (3 Mb) in 2009 from the Conservation Biology & Sustainable Development program in the Nelson Institute. Her masters thesis focused on Andean bear conservation on private lands in Ecuador.
Taylor Jones, M.S. 2010
Taylor Jones focused on methods for verifying wildlife persistence on private lands producing food and fiber under conservation incentive schemes. She conducted a camera trap study of the Andean bear in Ecuador and evaluated the effectiveness of camera trapping as a method for identifying individual Andean bears and verifying their persistence over time. She was awarded her M.S. thesis (13 Mb) in 2010 from the Conservation Biology & Sustainable Development program in the Nelson Institute.
Victoria Shelley, M.S. 2010
Tory Shelley studied the human dimensions of wolf policy and management in Wisconsin. Specifically, she worked with the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe (Chippewa) Indians to understand their attitudes to current and proposed wolf policy. Through her work she hopes to build bridges between the public, policy makers, and managers in a time of extraordinary wolf policy change.She was awarded her M.S. thesis (1.1 Mb) in 2010 from the Conservation Biology & Sustainable Development program in the Nelson Institute.
Erik Olson, Ph.D. candidate
Erik is interested in multiple facets of wolf-human interactions. First, using data for the state of Wisconsin he is attempting to predict dog depredations, so as to reduce the number of future depredations and wolf-human conflicts. Second, Erik is interested in examining the ecological relationships between deer, wolves, and farmers. Farmers face both livestock depredation by wolves and crop damage by deer. Erik plans to explore how fluctuations in local deer populations affect wolf behavior. He hopes his research will shed light on deer, wolf, crop damage, and livestock depredation management. Lastly, Erik is interested in the application of non-invasive survey techniques, primarily camera traps, to understand interactions between carnivores and their prey. See his personal page for more background.
Zachary Voyles, M.S. candidate
Zach is studying nuisance black bear activity and management in Wisconsin. By examining the spatial and ecological patterns of residential and agricultural bear damage, he hopes to uncover underlying mechanisms that create black bear-human conflicts and recommend ways to avoid them.
Rebecca Zulueta, M.S. candidate
Rebecca's work focuses on human-bear conflict on the Kenai Peninsula of Alaska. She is looking at communities with varying degrees of human-bear conflict and surveying residents about their attitudes and risk perception towards bears. This research will be the first of its kind on the Kenai Peninsula and hopes to provide wildlife managers with a better understanding of residents and their experiences while also addressing the underlying issues of conflicts.
Jeong Eun (Anya) Lim, Ph.D. candidate
Anya is interested in human-tiger conflict, compensation programs for wildlife damages, community participation in tiger conservation, and conservation education and outreach. Her research at Nam Et-Phou Louey, Lao PDR focuses on conflict between livestock herders and carnivores which include tigers, leopards, and dholes, as well as the perceptions of local community members toward these predators. Ultimately she wishes to find locally acceptable solutions to mitigate livestock depredation by carnivores and reduce conflicts.
Brittany Bovard, M.S. candidate
Brittany is interested in the intersection of large carnivore behavior and ecology with human dimensions of carnivore management and conservation. She is studying theoretical questions about the functional response of wolves to changes in primary prey abundance in a mixed agricultural landscape. Additionally, she hopes to work with farmers to better understand their perceptions of risk and address issues of wolf management and coexistence.
Omar Ohrens, M.S. candidate
Omar is an agronomist from Chile, who has studied various wildlife in human-dominated landscapes for the last four years. His research will be focused on human-carnivore conflict and conservation, specifically of pumas, in the region of Tarapaca, Chile. He will lead a project to develop and implement a puma conservation and mitigate the conflict related to livestock predation. Omar won the Becas Chile-CONICYT Scholarship from the Chilean government and his research is funded by the Agriculture & Livestock Service (SAG-Chile).
Nathan Schulfer, M.S. candidate
Nathan's interests lie in conservation strategies that can reduce human pressures within the habitat of critical species. By linking the flow of ecosystem services and food security to conservation strategies, Nathan aims to promote community-based programs that promote resilient landscapes and the conservation of wildlife and natural resources. Currently Nathan's Masters research conducted in partnership with Conservation International focuses on the contributions of ecosystem services to food security. He will also investigate the conservation of habitat for the wild Giant Panda. Prior to entering the Nelson Institute worked in Wolong Nature Reserve, Sichuan Province China on community-based conservation programs and in resource protection for the U.S. Department of the Interior, in Glacier National Park.
Before CCL was founded in April 2007, the following students completed Masters degree work on carnivores in collaboration with Adrian Treves.
Please contact them directly for further information or see our publications together.
Undergraduate Research Assistants
Lucas Olson, Research Assistant
Lucas is interested in the effects of grey wolves as a keystone species on ecosystems including the presence of a trophic cascade that has resulted from wolf recolonization. He is currently studying the diet composition of central and northern Wisconsin wolves through scat analysis. Through his research, Lucas hopes to improve the understanding of wolf feeding ecology, and subsequently, improve wolf population management and human attitudes towards wolves in Wisconsin and the Great Lakes region.