We currently live in a time of extreme biodiversity loss popularly known as the sixth mass extinction event. The founder of the field of wildlife biology, Aldo Leopold, even once famously wrote: "One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds." Highlighting that wildlife biologists necessarily face the often dispiriting task of trying to save the last remnant populations of the very species they are passionate about. Taking the more optimistic glass half full perspective, there are opportunities for science to help advance the restoration of wildlife populations.  Along these lines, our research is dedicated to trying to inform management that enhances the restoration of wildlife populations - particularly mammals.​

​We take a wholistic or systems-based approach to our restoration ecology research, focusing of geographic regions to try to bring entire mammalian communities back. Over the past several decades our efforts have focused on three focal areas highlighted below. In each area, we strive to conduct studies that help species at all places on the restoration spectrum from newly released to established (but still at risk) populations. We also look beyond what is currently being restored, to provide information on when imperiled species need restorative action. Importantly, we also seek to show how we can learn from past efforts to restore lost species not yet brought back into these systems. Click on the image below to learn more about our work in each of these focal regions.