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School of Environment and Natural Resources

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SENR Seminar Series- Rod Williams 4/4/19

Apr 4, 2019, 4:00pm - 5:30pm

Dr. Rod Williams, Engagement Faculty Fellow and Associate Professor of Wildlife in Forestry and Natural Resources at Purdue University, will present An Engaged Approach to Endangered Species Conservation from 4:10-5:30P.M. in 164 Howlett Hall.

Brief Summary: The philosophy of the 3 Rs of conservation biology (representation, resiliency, and redundancy) provide wildlife managers with an important framework for conducting species restoration efforts. The Eastern Hellbender has experienced precipitous population declines over the past several decades and is currently being reviewed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) for potential listing under the Endangered Species Act. In Indiana, the species is listed as state endangered and exists only as a single, isolated, functionally extirpated population in the Blue River in southern Indiana. The Indiana Department of Natural Resources and Purdue University have implemented a long-term conservation plan to help restore Hellbenders to the Blue River and eventually throughout historic portions of their range. Since 2007, Purdue University and our partners have been collecting demography, genetic, health, habitat, and husbandry data. We are using these data combined with the 3Rs approach to successfully guide Eastern Hellbender recovery in the Blue River. With this approach, we hope to establish an adaptively diverse, resilient, and redundant population within the Blue River within the next decade, and to provide a template for successful restoration efforts throughout the Hellbender’s range. 

You can listen to his recorded presentation here: http://carmenconnect.osu.edu/p7pwl736dgd/?OWASP_CSRFTOKEN=f548fc0ca535a5dbf319705837b1235f300436d5014affe5ce8f0e5c686945ae