Natural resource ecology & management, winter 2012, v.6 no.1

              Inside This Issue
Dr. Owens’ Departmental Update
A Biannual Newsletter from The Natural Resource Ecology &
Winter Management Department at Oklahoma State University. 2012
The last six months have been busy and we’ve had a few changes in the de-partment.
Undergraduate student enrollment increased from 170 in fall 2010
to 214 in fall, a 26% increase in our undergraduate student body. The advertis-ing
we’ve done over the last several years and being a department for 5 years
has increased our visibility. Our classes are larger and field trips a bit more
involved, but the increased enrollment is good for the department.
One of our new undergraduate options, Wildlife Biology/Pre-veterinary
Science, has its first graduate this spring. Kelsey Anderson has been accepted
to the Oregon State University Veterinary School. She is one of only 16 out-of-state
students accepted into this program, congratulations Kelsey! We have
also started an in-depth review of our wildlife ecology and management cur-riculum
to make sure it is meeting the needs of the profession. Over the next
several months we will be reorganizing our courses to meet the learning objec-tives
and goals for a professional wildlifer. We will be contacting some alumni
and current professionals to get their input, so we may be contacting you.
Our remodeling project to construct new offices and bring the Oklahoma
Fish and Wildlife Cooperative research Unit to Ag Hall has been completed.
The Unit moved into their new offices right before Christmas break. This
remodeling also allowed us to consolidate other offices including faculty, post-docs
and graduate students, and add a new laboratory for the Unit.
Faculty members in NREM have been very active with research grants
over the last year. The department has been building strength in learning
how plants and animals adapt to climate uncertainty and change. The South
Central Region Climate Science Center was recently funded by the US Geo-logical
Survey as a consortium of OSU, University of Oklahoma, Texas Tech
University, Louisiana State University, The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, The
Chickasaw Nation and the NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at
Princeton. Many of our research projects will support the goal of this Center
by determining how fish and wildlife populations, and their habitats, are likely
to change over the next 10 to 20 years. Then we can develop management
plans to mitigate these changes. Like always, if you are in Stillwater, please
stop by the office.
Departmental Update
-Page 1
2012 Early Drought
Status
-Page 2
Ranching and Drought
-Page 3
Drought Impacts to
Wildlife
-Page 4
Common Questions
About Prescribed Fire
and Drought
-Page 5
Water Use by Trees
-Page 6
Ponds After Drought
-Pages 7 & 8
Events
-Page 8