Miranda Hopper
Texas A&M University – Kingsville
M.S. in Range and Wildlife Management
Maternal Investment of a Long-lived Herbivore in a Dynamic Environment
Just over a year ago, I moved to Texas from my hometown in Georgia to pursue a master’s degree in Range and Wildlife Management at the Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute. In May 2021, I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Fisheries and Wildlife Science from the University of Georgia. Growing up, I had limited exposure to wildlife and what it meant to truly be an outdoorswoman. However, through my undergraduate studies and a learn-to-hunt program offered at my university, I fell in love with game management, specifically, white-tailed deer.
My current research is focused on the maternal investment of female white-tailed deer in the fawning season. White-tailed deer have numerous opportunities to reproduce, and sometimes, particularly in stressful periods, like a drought, they may choose to invest less in their current fawn in the hopes of being in better condition to raise a fawn in the next year. We are using GPS collar data to examine the behavior of females and how their response to factors, such as predation risk and forage quality, affects fawn survival. I hope that my research will shed light on the behavior of females in stressful periods and how that may influence population demographics.
