The core group of individuals/organizations and how these individuals will contribute to BWG follows:

Paul Beier: Paul, a professor at Northern Arizona University and 2005 Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellow,  is a scientific adviser to BWG. Paul has done extensive field work on puma in fragmented habitats in southern California, and in the Sky Island Region of the Southwestern US and northern Mexico, and will join the Florida Panther Recovery Team on his return to the US in August 2000. Paul will help structure the research program and will bring special expertise in population modeling and PVA. Paul may be able to involve graduate student researchers in BWG research.

Arturo Caso: Arturo is the Executive Director of the Proyectos Sobre los Felinos Neotropicales de Mexico and one of the primary ocelot and jaguarundi biologist in the world. Arturo studies all three neotropical cat species in our eastern bioregion of Texas/Tamaulipas-Coahuila. Arturo is also a member of the recovery team for ocelots and jaguarundis.

Kevin Crooks: Kevin is an associate professor at the Colorado State University. Kevin completed his Ph.D. in wildlife ecology with Michael Soulé, studying the effects of habitat fragmentation on mammalian carnivores.  Kevin has previously worked with Round River Conservation Studies, a major supplier of volunteers to the BWG effort. Kevin will concentrate on developing survey techniques to inventory bordercats throughout their range. Through CSU, Kevin will work with graduate students and volunteers who will conduct field research to determine the status and distribution of bordercats and will write up results of these surveys, in addition to planning for future surveys. Kevin will also put together a summary of the effectiveness of underpass/culvert structures for cats.

Top

Susan George: Susan is a Senior Staff Attorney with the Institute of Public Law, where she works on public interest issues such as wildlife protection and biodiversity conservation.  Prior to this, she served as Senior Counsel for Defenders of Wildlife for twelve years, where she co-authored numerous publications state wildlife law issues, including "Saving Biodiversity:  State Laws, Policies and Programs" and "Protecting New Mexico's Natural Heritage:  Recommendations on Steps Toward a Comprehensive Biodiversity Conservation Strategy for New Mexico." 

Ms. George also worked for the Western Environmental Law Center, as well as in a private firm where she focused on civil litigation and environmental issues, and has been an adjunct professor at the University of New Mexico School of Law, where she taught Wildlife Law.  Susan is a 1988 graduate of the University of New Mexico School of Law, where she was a Lead Articles Editor for the Natural Resources Journal and earned a Natural Resources certificate.  

Susan is legal adviser to the BWG. She is actively involved with both state and federal laws protecting bordercats. She will help determine how we can best promote recovery, from a legal perspective, in Mexico. Lastly, in areas like Texas, where private land predominates, Susan will assist BWG in designing land conservation projects with private land owners.

Melissa Grigione: Melissa, is an associate professor at Pace University (Pleasantville, NY) in the  Graduate program in Environmental Science and Policy, and co-founder of the Bordercats Working Group. She will serve as a coordinator to the BWG and the IUCN-Cat Specialist Group. She is working with John Morrison from World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Kurt Menke, and Robert Thomas, on a Geographical Information System (GIS)-based recovery map for all bordercat species.

This map will follow the mapping protocols developed in a WWF in a report (1997) entitled, "A Framework for Identifying High Priority Areas and Actions for the Conservation of Tigers in the Wild." She, John and Robert will also work closely with Dave Foreman (and the Wildlands Project mapping group), Jack Humphrey (and the Sky Island Alliance mapping group) and Eric Sanderson (GIS ecologist at Wildlife Conservation International). In addition, with the assistance of Robert, she will develop a web presence to raise awareness about these endangered species and to provide an internet link to both the conservation community and the international populous at large.

Melissa will continue to apply for funds, with Round River Conservation Studies and other researchers, to fuel the research portion of the BWG. In addition, she will coordinate research projects that will synthesize data for bordercat specimens (from museum and sighting reports) and review all literature on bordercats. A sighting/distribution map for each species has been produced from this effort. She will work as an expert witness on legal issues between the U.S. Border Patrol and co-plaintiffs Frontera Audubon Society, Lone Star Sierra Club, and Defenders of Wildlife as they negotiate ways to conserve neotropical cats near the U.S./Mexican border.

Rurik List: Rurik is an associate researcher at the Institute of Ecology from the National University of Mexico. He is a Mexican carnivore and conservation biologist. His work focuses on research and implementation of actions that advance the conservation of carnivores, threatened species and their habitats. He has a special interest in species’ reintroduction, and in the identification and protection of biologically important areas. An important part of his activities are on outreach about his work subjects and areas, and about Nature conservation issues in general. Most of his career has taken place in grasslands and temperate forests. He has been involved in research or in conservation efforts with species like the black-footed ferret, wolf, kit and gray foxes, coyote, bison, ringtail and jaguar.

 Carlos López González: Carlos is one of the foremost jaguar biologists.  Currently attached with the Northern Rockies Conservation Cooperative and the Denver Zoo, he studies all three neotropical cat species in our western bioregion of Arizona-New Mexico/Sonora-Chihuahua.

Dave Maehr, 1998-2008: Dave, a professor at University of Kentucky-Lexington and 2004 Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellow, was a scientific adviser to BWG on Panthers.

It is with great sadness that the Bordercats Working Group has to announce that Dr. Dave Maehr has tragically passed on. While doing what he loved best (studying Black bears), the airplane he was riding in fatally crashed after takeoff on June 20, 2008 in Florida.

This is a huge loss to the conservation community and the world at large. Dave had an innate way of communicating the complexities of what we do as conservationist; for positive action and educating others to honor the species we co-exist with.  For the later part of his career, he worked tirelessly researching and trying to protect the Florida Panthers and Black Bears.

Dave will be truly missed as both a mentor and a friend.  His legacy will live on in all that had the good fortune of knowing him. 

Click here for more information, click here for tribute story, and click here for a blog.

Craig Miller: Craig, Arizona representative to Defenders of Wildlife, is our jaguar conservation team liaison. Craig has already established our sighting information data for jaguars throughout the southwest and will continue to review the jaguar sighting literature for future sightings. Craig will work with Melissa to develop a similar sighting protocol for ocelots and jaguarundis so that these points can be put on a GIS layer to authenticate historical ranges for each species. Craig will facilitate constituency building in the Southwest and will also work closely with individuals at the Arizona Department of Fish and Game.

Top

Paul Polechla: Paul, research associate professor at the University of New Mexico-Albuquerque, will help supervise our track surveys and field work for the bordercats and will supervise undergraduate and graduate students who will supplement our research efforts. Paul will help the BWG apply for grants and will set up a protocol with museums to obtain data on locations of bordercat specimens. He will also work with Melissa Grigione on collating all literature on bordercats. iological Diversity, will integrate the Center’s conservation and legal strategies in the Southwest with those of the BWG. The Center’s legal and biological efforts led to the federal listing of the jaguar as an endangered species in the U.S.  Michael is a member of the jaguar conservation team: a group of volunteers defining conservation priorities for jaguars prior to a Fish and Wildlife Service recovery plan or team.

Scott Royder: Scott, former Director of Communications and Grassroots Services of The Sierra Club-Austin, has been our primary conservation contact in Texas. Scott has kept us abreast of all activities which could potentially threaten ocelot and jaguarundi recovery in Texas, such as highway projects, housing developments, international bridges, and oil/gas pipelines. He coordinated our Rio Grande survey in March and will continue to coordinate efforts between south and west Texans who are involved in bordercat issues, including land owners. Lastly, Scott has gathered sighting information for bordercats in Texas and has incorporated this data into our GIS database.

Other Core individuals/institutions (who did not attend the initial Bordercats Working Group meeting):

Marcelo Aranda Sánchez: Marcelo's research activities at the Instituto De Ecologia, Mexico are aimed at generating awareness about the ecology of wild carnivores in Mexico, to understand their importance to ecological systems, and seek a better coexistence with humans.  With regard to teaching, since 1989 he gives the module on Management and Conservation of Wildlife in a diploma course for the Conservation and Management of protected wildlife areas in America, organized by Ducks Unlimited of Mexico, AC.  In addition, Marcelo is on the Jaguar Advisory group at the Wildlife Conservation Society.

Top

Anthony Giordano: Anthony is a doctoral fellow and graduate teaching assistant at Texas Tech University, and Director of Conservation Science & Field Projects for S.P.E.C.I.E.S. For his dissertation research, he studied the spatial ecology and population structure of jaguars in Paraguay, as well as surveying them using noninvasive genetic methods. Anthony is a doctoral fellow and graduate teaching assistant at Texas Tech University, and Director of Conservation Science & Field Projects for S.P.E.C.I.E.S. For his dissertation research, he studied the spatial ecology and population structure of jaguars in Paraguay, as well as surveying them using noninvasive genetic methods. Anthony is pursuing the initiation of research on carnivores in the borderlands, including jaguarundis and ocelots in the Big Bend- El Carmen Mountain Ecosystems, as well as on private lands in South Texas. He will secure funding for efforts to survey and research jaguars in Sonora-Mexico, as well as the southern Carmen Mountains in Mexico.

Diama Lawhorn: Diana, a Wildlife Biologist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission received her M.S. in Environmental Science & Policy at the University of South Florida.  During that time and while she was working for Defenders of Wildlife, she was the point person for gathering historical sighting data for the museum project that was used to create the historical sighting maps.  

Kurt Menke: Kurt is a GIS Specialist at the Earth Data Analysis Center at the University of New Mexico and the Principle of Bird's Eye View GIS Services .  He has a background as an archaeologist, having done work in the southwest US for ten years and Geographical Information Systems.  Having assisted the Wildlands Project on several GIS Mapping projects, Kurt recently has been assisting the BWG on several projects in the southwest US and Mexico, including giving presentations andparticipating in outreach workshops.

Top

John Morrison: John is the Director of Conservation Measures in the Conservation Science Program at WWF, where he is leading efforts to measure conservation status and strategy effectiveness.  John has been involved with spatial and strategic planning for WWF for over 10 years, and worked all over the world.  He has also worked on sustainable forestry and other conservation issues in  New Guinea.  He has been heavily involved in High Conservation Value Forest initiatives, the Alliance for Zero Extinction, and similar collaborative efforts by some the world’s largest conservation organizations to identify and map critical global habitats.

His recent focus has been on how to measure conservation progress in WWF’s ecoregional programs.  John’s educational background and early career focused on Geology (BS, Emory University) and Hydrologic Engineering (MS, University of California, Berkeley).  Worldwide travel and birdwatching convinced him to return to graduate school and obtain a higher degree in Conservation Biology (MS, University of California, Davis). 

Robert Thomas: Robert has been working on all the GIS initiatives in a variety of capacities from the onset of the BWG formation including the BWG web site. He is currently with Melissa on a Puma telemetry project taking place in Chile, as well as doing fund raising, and web pages updates. Previously he worked for  a local city in the Sacramento Valley starting their enterprise GIS program. Robert's future plans are to attend graduate school in Environmental Science & Planning utilizing remote sensing technology with GIS and neural network habitat modeling to further the conservation ecology research of bordercats.

Allison Scoville: Allison is a Postdoctoral researcher in the department of Ecology and Environmental Biology at the University of Kansas.  She uses both theoretical and empirical approaches to investigate fundamental questions in evolutionary biology, with an emphasis on incorporating the complexity inherent in natural populations.  Alison works on a number of projects for the BWG and has been a key contributor on a number of peer review articles.

Gerald Scoville: Jerry has been a naturalist at Round River Conservation Studies for over thirteen years and has been a key contributor on a number of articles on bordercats.

Dave Zaber: Dave is a founding member of the Habitat Education Center in Madison, WI  and serves as the organization's Ecologist and Toxicologist.  Dr. Zaber has been active in environmental issues at the local, state and national levels for over 21 years and is the author of numerous scientific reports in the fields of environmental toxicology and resource ecology.  Prior to arriving in Wisconsin, Dr. Zaber was Director of Science at Defenders of Wildlife in Washington, D.C. and is author of the report, Southern Lessons: Saving Species Through the National Forest Management Act.  Dave will be a scientific adviser to BWG.