Your support of the W.A. Franke College of Forestry and Conservation comes at a crucial time. Changing weather patterns mean land managers face challenging resource management decisions for Montana’s blue-ribbon aquatic ecosystems. Drought conditions threaten the livelihoods of ranchers and farmers across the state.
We are focused on pragmatic solutions to these environmental challenges.
Our faculty develop unbiased, data-driven solutions for securing healthy waterways and sustaining recreational opportunities across the West. Our students learn through immersive, hands-on fieldwork and real-world applications with partners such as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Land Management. Our alumni are recognized leaders in natural resource management, conservation and environmental science who inform critical research and policy decisions.
Read the stories below to learn how our work has profound economic and environmental impact for our waterways and how your support makes a difference.
The Siebel-Lewis Endowed Chair in Fisheries Science will bolster and expand the aquatic focus of the Wildlife Biology Program, furthering its mission to deliver excellence in education and advance science-based management of fisheries in Montana, the West and beyond.
With your help, we instill in students a deep sense of stewardship for our state’s natural resources and empower them to address pressing issues facing Montana and the wider Western region.
The University of Montana recently named Yoichiro Kanno, one of the nation’s leading fisheries scientists, as the newest endowed chair in its top-ranked Wildlife Biology Program.
Ph.D. candidate Brooke Bain-White is not only pursuing her dream of conducting impactful watershed research across the West – she is also filling a need for female mentors in the field. Together with Sage Fletcher, who is earning a master’s degree in systems ecology at UM, she is uncovering how wildfire impacts mountain lakes and expanding representation in science.
UM sounded an alarm for “record-setting low streamflow conditions” on the Blackfoot River this summer in collaboration with the Blackfoot Challenge, a local volunteer conservation group. UM students and faculty are hard at work seeking solutions that will impact anglers, farmers, ranchers and water recreationists alike.
Another summer of record-breaking tourism in Montana led UM graduate student Daniel Pendergraph to pose the question: What impact might this boom in human activity have on the pristine water quality of backcountry lakes? Pendergraph and other researchers published their study in Wilderness & Environmental Medicine.
A new conservation rule adopted by the Bureau of Land Management allows the agency to lease land for conservation and restoration purposes. For the BLM’s slice of the Blackfoot River corridor, students in UM's Parks, Tourism and Recreation Management program were some of the first to investigate how the impacts of different recreation types are threatening wildlife species.
To learn more and to support the Franke College, contact Melinda Booth, senior director of development for the W.A. Franke College of Forestry and Conservation and the Wildlife Biology Program, at melinda.booth@supportum.org or 406-243-2593. You may also visit our Contact page to submit a message.
To learn about the University of Montana Foundation, visit www.SupportUM.org.
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