A (professional!) year in review: thespeclab.weebly.com/news/2025-a-...

We’ve got another one, folks! @thespeclab.bsky.social has another outstanding student who successfully defended her Masters degree. Alexandria was co-advised by disease ecologist Dr. Alynn Martin. Congratulations, Alexandria!! 🦠 🐆

Congrats to Tori Locke of @thespeclab.bsky.social, who successfully defended her M.S. today! 🐆

Oh what a night! Our team @thespeclab.bsky.social successfully collared another bobcat kitten as part of Tori Locke’s ongoing research into bobcat and ocelot reproduction 🐆

Oh my, @thespeclab.bsky.social just had its first graduate student fly the coop. 🥺 Congrats Tyler!

Student-lead joint lab paper published today! Black bears are abundant in North America - this review investigates their trophic role as large omnivores with top-down effects onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... 🌎🧪 @johnnettles.bsky.social @pancakesnmegs.bsky.social @davidjachowski.bsky.social

Tyler Bostwick is the first graduate student from @thespeclab.bsky.social to defend her thesis!!! 🧬🐆 She did AWESOME!!! Yay!!! 🎉🍾🎊👯

We at @thespeclab.bsky.social successfully made it to #ICCB2025 in Brisbane, Australia 🇦🇺 & taught our Geospatial Analysis in R Workshop. Next up: four oral presentations and three posters! 🤓

Congratulations to @thespeclab.bsky.social's Tori Locke, MS student, who successfully collared her first bobcat kitten as part of her research into reproduction of bobcats and ocelots. This work will help inform population modeling for both felid species in South Texas. 🐆🤠

🐺🐺🐺 NEW PAPER! 🐺🐺🐺 Recovering wolves in WA tolerate threats except high harvest, high lethal removals, and lack of immigration With @labgardner.bsky.social, Sarah Converse, & Ben Maletzke zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Life achievement unlocked: my name made it into Mason’s blog! 🤠 He always does such a great job with these posts!

🧪 Detailed data viz NYT article, out today, on the extent of funding cuts at the National Science Foundation. This "broken pie chart" is neat & new to me: Powerfully shows the slowdown in new NSF awards across areas. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

New blog post sharing updates on the latest version of the Diel.Niche R package, which we just released about an hour ago. Interested in quantifying if a species is nocturnal with data? Well it is easier than ever now! 🧪 #rstats #cameratrapping masonfidino.com/Diel.Niche_u...

Not a bad way to start the day

🐆🐆 Aaaaand we have another M.S. position available!! This position represents an opportunity to study ocelot genomics in the context of an active reintroduction effort. Deadline is June 1 for an August start 🐆🐆 Position posting is here: shorturl.at/o4dTA

🐆🐆 TWO M.S. POSITIONS AVAILABLE IN MY LAB!! Focus will be bobcat and coyote dynamics in an ocelot pre-reintroduction landscape. Come join the fun. Deadline is June 1 for an August start 🐆🐆 Position posting is here: tinyurl.com/5y3uhbf3

We are hiring an Assistant/Associate Prof of Quantitative Ecology! I'm on the Search Committee for this one. If you have any interest in the position & want to learn more about living in this v. cool part of the country, pls reach out! tinyurl.com/2h6bdece

Are you going to #ICCB2025 in Brisbane? Come take the Geospatial Analysis in R all-day workshop on Saturday, June 14. This workshop was developed by me and @amandacheeseman.bsky.social in the COVID era, and now has some brand-new updates from @thespeclab.bsky.social! Join us! 🗺️🤓🦘

We had SO MUCH FUN hosting the best of the best @labgardner.bsky.social

@thespeclab.bsky.social is out in full force at #TCTWS 🐆 🐾

Had an awesome night last night at Catawba College’s Center for the Environment! 🐆 🗺️ 🐾 @catawbacollege.bsky.social

See ya tonight Catawba! @catawbacollege.bsky.social

🐾Meet Barley & Scottie, our incredible scat detection dogs from K9 Conservationists, & their skilled handler, Heather Nootbaar!🐶🔍Together, they’re helping us track carnivore populations—all through the power of scent. We’re lucky to have them on the team!🐕🌿#WildlifeResearch

First paper from my postdoc is out in #EcologicalMonographs w/ @ecologicalsociety.bsky.social! We looked at patterns of summer co-occurrence among 5 predators at 3 time scales to assess how competition, prey, & habitat affected predator distributions in north Idaho, USA. dx.doi.org/10.1002/ecm....

Exclusive: NSF this week began to search through billions of dollars of grants the agency has already awarded for anything touching on topics that President Donald Trump has criticized. And NSF has blocked grantees and trainees from accessing funds while the review is underway. scim.ag/3El0NZh

I could not be more stoked about our capture of P04 yesterday, an 80-lb, ~3yo female mountain lion captured and GPS-collared as part of the CKWRI South Texas Lion Project. We are investigating lion movement ecology, density, and genetics in the TX-Mexico borderlands.

King Barley is killing it in tough conditions searching for ocelot scat in Texas. He’s being handled by my coworker Heather as they help @lisannepetracca.bsky.social ‘s lab out.

What a year. From one student to seven, and with lots of great work happening for the ocelots and mountain lions of South Texas.

So proud of the SPEC Lab team, led by @biologisttori.bsky.social, working up its fourth bobcat of the season. Tori is studying bobcat kitten survival and den site selection for her MS, as well as rodenticide exposure in mesocarnivores.

Heck yeah, let’s gooooo!

🦁🦁🦁 We are seeking a Research Technician to assist our South Texas Lion Project! Work duties include maintaining our camera traps, investigating kill sites, and participating in lion work-ups. A phenomenal opportunity in the South Texas brush country. See below for more: shorturl.at/aftKp 🦁🦁🦁

Back in my office and there are five mysterious hand turkeys on my desk. One has a bowtie. 🦃 🤵🏻

Whoa! Haven’t posted here in over a year (I got way more interaction on the “other one”) but it seems this is where the people are now?

🐆 Deadline is TOMORROW (Nov. 12) for two positions in my lab: Postdoctoral Scholar and Program Manager, both under our ocelot research program. See my below posts for more info. ALSO: Two technician positions for a January start date will be announced this week. 🐆

🚩🚩 Position 2/2: Program Manager for the SPEC Lab Ocelot Research Program. See shorturl.at/LMN57 to apply. Deadline is November 12. Five years of experience in related tasks is **required** for this pay scale as per A&M rules, so pls have this reflected in your CV 🚩🚩

🚩🚩 Position 1/2: Postdoctoral Scholar in Ocelot Population Dynamics. See shorturl.at/MORY2 to apply. Deadline is November 12. Please help me spread the word! 🚩🚩

Unbeknownst to me, I was just a reviewer on an ms with SEVEN reviewers. Seven. That AE needs to make a decision and let the authors have some closure.

🚩🚩 Position 2/2: Program Manager for the SPEC Lab Ocelot Research Program. See shorturl.at/LMN57 to apply. Deadline is November 12. Five years of experience in related tasks is **required** for this pay scale as per A&M rules, so pls have this reflected in your CV 🚩🚩

🚩🚩 Position 1/2: Postdoctoral Scholar in Ocelot Population Dynamics. See shorturl.at/MORY2 to apply. Deadline is November 12. Please help me spread the word! 🚩🚩

These positions are going live tomorrow! 👀

Number of unread emails: 666

Just did my first radio interview 📻and am super stoked to see Texan ocelots getting some press! Now we need a similar highlight on the very cool, very understudied mountain lions. 🐆

Welp guess I had it all figured out

86 degree temps didn’t stop members of the SPEC and Tewes Labs from representing CKWRI at the Run/Walk for Suicide Awareness

I have a variety of friends I talk to all the time

Top moment of packing up my childhood bedroom was finding my Lisa Frank folders from the early 90s

Hi all! I will soon be recruiting for TWO positions to start January 2024: a postdoc with our ocelot research program AND an ocelot program manager. Stay tuned, as I'll announce here when the postings go live. 📷: Ben Masters

I added SIX new graduate students this fall and yup, I guess I’ve gone off the deep end. How lucky am I to work with these fab people? https://lisannepetracca.weebly.com/people.html

I START TEACHING UNDERGRADS TOMORROW