Graduate Research Assistant/ M.S. in Wildlife, Aquatic and Wildlands Science and Management

Influence of Wind Energy on Burrowing Owl Habitat Use in the Texas Panhandle

Like most students in wildlife related fields, my passion for hunting brought me here but my love for research kept me here. I received my B.S. from Texas Tech University in Natural Resources Management in 2018. After graduation, I worked as a field technician in New Mexico before starting graduate school at Texas Tech University in August 2019.

My current research project focuses on burrowing owl habitat use in relation to wind energy. Burrowing owls have been in decline for many years due to anthropogenic factors. We will be using satellite transmitters to monitor migration patterns and dispersal from natal burrows as well as how they use habitats surrounding wind turbines. This project is still in the planning phase and we are excited to see how many questions we can answer with this data.

UPDATE

Thank you for your generous assistance. This scholarship has helped me continue the
pursuit of my Master of Science at Texas Tech University in numerous ways.
This year, I have designed my field project and season, but progress was stopped due to
COVID-19. I am sure that most of you can relate to the way this pandemic has drastically
changed our world. I am writing this letter while I am home due to the Phase IV shutdown order given by the Texas Tech University President. Also, my graduate position is funded through a federal agency; therefore, we are currently on a government mandate to work from home. This has given me the opportunity to be creative in how I conduct my research until I am able to go back into the field, which hopefully should be in June.

My project is focused around burrowing owl habitat use in relation to wind energy. The
original plan was to have a multi-faceted research project around these two subjects. However, due to this crisis the plan has changed. I have been fortunate enough to partner with a research biologist in Idaho who has some previous GPS data from burrowing owls and has shared those locations with me and I am currently overlaying them with wind turbine data in ArcGIS to answer some questions on how burrowing owls use habitat with turbines present. The current plan is to spend the next few months working on analyzing this data until I can get back into the field and start attaching GPS transmitters to owls in my study area. During this time of economic uncertainty and I am extremely grateful to have been chosen as representative of the Houston Safari Club Foundation as a Dan L. Duncan Scholarship recipient, I could not have done it without your support. Thank you for believing in me.