Dr. Choate is a wildlife ecologist and a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where he continues his collaboration with the USGS Western Ecological Research Center.  On June 1st he'll give a presentation titled, Cougars and their drinking problems?  Living on the edge creates a predator-prey shell game in the northern Mojave Desert.  

In a landscape limited by water, wildlife interactions are likely to hinge on availability of this valuable resource, with prey seeking water and predators seeking prey.  Yet overuse of particular sites for hunting can also lead to extremely wary prey.  This dynamic trade-off suggests potential mechanisms for understanding why densities of cougars, bighorn sheep, and mule deer are typically low, and ever in flux in desert environments.  In this talk we will explore cougar-prey ecology, how large mammals survive in an extreme environment, challenges of collecting data under such conditions, and the importance of having these data to answer fundamental questions about the nature of existence in our local desert mountains.

His worked was focused in the Dessert National Wildlife Refuge, yet another reason this Refuge is critically important for wildlife.

We'll see you there!

Friends of Nevada Wilderness is hosting a monthly meeting the first Thursday of every month and we're calling it our Wild Speaker Series! This is a great way for folks who are interested in conservation to learn about current issues. Arrive at 6:45 to socialize and snack before the presentation at 7 pm. Please join us at REI Boca Park every first Thursday for a new speaker every month!