Aidan Branney
Texas A&M University-Kingsville
Graduate Research Assistant/ M.S. in Range and Wildlife Management/Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute
Bobcat habitat use in restored and managed landscapes
I’m originally from the Los Angeles area in Southern California and obtained my undergrad at Cal Poly Humboldt in Northern California. After earning my degree, I worked for Cornell in Queensland, Australia studying red backed fairy wrens, the National Park Service in the Santa Monica Mountains studying herpetofauna and bobcats, and the University of Washington studying coyotes and bobcats in Eastern Washington. After my time in Washington, I soon discovered that I would begin my grad school journey in southern Texas.
My project investigates how brush management impacts the habitat selection of bobcats. Brush management is an optimization strategy to promote both agriculture and wildlife habitat management. It has proven effective for game species such as white-tailed deer and northern bobwhite but little is known about the impacts of brush management on non-target species let alone carnivores. We used bobcats as our study organism as they are reliant on concealment cover to hunt and attack prey. The objective of this research is to investigate the habitat selection of bobcats in this managed area and understand how landscape configuration can drive selection through the use of GPS collars and trail cameras.
