Joseph McGovern
Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute, Texas A&M University- Kingsville
Master’s Student, Range and Wildlife Management
Spring migration ecophysiology of northern pintails under current and future climates in Western North America
My passion for conservation and the outdoors takes its roots growing up hunting, fishing, and birding in central Iowa. Hunting has placed in me a deep respect and care for our natural resources, and a desire to protect them for future generations. I further pursued this passion studying Animal Ecology at Iowa State University, where I gained a passion for science as a tool for ecological stewardship. My work, reflecting this passion, has included avian research in agricultural landscapes, ecological restoration of prairies and oak savannas, and inventorying and monitoring birds, butterflies, mammals, herps and fish across the state of Iowa.
I started my master’s at CKWRI in spring of 2023. I am studying how female northern pintails optimize their use of thermal environments during spring migration and how this might change under projected climate change in the western U.S. My goals are to assess how pintails vary in optimizing thermoregulation costs during migration and inform adaptive management of pintails and other waterfowl under climate change. I have also had the opportunity to help with projects working on shorebirds, wading birds, and cackling geese. I am very excited this fall to start experiencing some Texas duck hunting as well.
