Grad students are not to be trusted! On August 8th (2026) a conspiracy of graduate students lured Karl into a surprise retirement party, disguising it as a ‘wildlife trivia contest’ being held in the Heffley Community Hall. Sneaky, sneaky, sneaky. Pictured above are the current and former graduate and honours students that took part, along … Continue reading →

KARA defends! On July 15th Kara successfully defended her thesis on “Climate, Weather and Small Mammal Population Dynamics in a Northern Grassland”. The backbone of the project was the 25+ year data set on small mammal communities collected through senior wildlife students in the Department of Natural Resource Sciences. In addition, Kara compared ‘grassland mice’ … Continue reading →

On March 12, Karl gave his career ‘wind-up’ presentation as part of the Environmental Science Seminar. The talk summarized roughly 20 years of research on the movement ecology of the Western Rattlesnake, work conducted largely on the backs of graduate and undergraduate students. Following the presentation, a hefty group of the current research team made … Continue reading →

Another solid defence in our lab happened on Sept 9. Calen defended his thesis on the road ecology of snakes in fine order. External on the exam was Dr. James Baxter-Gilbert from Mount Allison University. It was a great defence with lots of interesting discussion. Calen’s thesis represents the culmination of nearly 11 years of … Continue reading →

Our team did exceptionally well in the recent 2025 student award competition by the Habitat Conservation Trust Fund (HCTF) of British Columbia. Hauling in major graduate awards were Shannon (fishers) and Larisa (bighorn sheep) from our lab. Three other MSc students from TRU also captured these awards, giving TRU the majority of the HCTF graduate … Continue reading →

The ‘mammal people’ in our lab journeyed to Lillehammer, Norway, for the International Wildlife Congress. Kara (mice/voles), Larisa (bighorn sheep), Shannon and Mae (both fishers) all delivered oral presentations on their work. Karl also chipped in a paper on rattlesnakes. It was a great trip as the Norwegians know how to host a fine conference.