The Intermountain West is undergoing dynamic demographic changes accompanied by changing land uses, and increasingly diverse and often conflicting demands on limited natural resources. As a result, finding solutions to complex natural resource problems and training future scientists has necessitated an increasingly inter-disciplinary approach. A Cooperative Agreement signed between the US Department of Interior and Utah State University in 1935 established the existence, mission, and function of the Utah Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit UCFWRU. It provides an organizational mechanism which enables the Unit, in the setting of the Quinney College of Natural Resources, to create and facilitate cooperative, interdisciplinary relationships with scientists and students at Utah State University, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, the Wildlife Management Institute, the USGS Biological Resources Division, and federal agencies.
The mission of the Utah Unit, as stated in our Cooperative Agreement, is to conduct research on natural resource issues, educate students destined to work in the field of natural resources, and provide technical assistance to our cooperators and clientele. Our expertise includes landscape and spatial ecology, population and system analysis for both aquatic and terrestrial systems, aquatic food webs of large water systems, and wildlife habitat and vegetation modeling. Technical expertise in the fields of statistics, GIS and spatial analysis is strong.
