Trout Lake Station
Published on Apr 4, 2018
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Tim Van Deelen Ph.D. is a professor of wildlife ecology having worked as a researcher in several conservation agencies in the Great Lakes region. His teaching and research focuses on the management of large mammals. These include population estimation and dynamics, hunting, interaction of deer life history and chronic wasting disease-and, not least, the growth of Wisconsin’s wolf population and its effects on white-tailed deer in the Great Lakes region.
Tim currently is investigating the factors that determine the distribution and abundance of the terrestrial carnivore guild in an island archipelago. The Apostle Islands are a chain of 22 islands of varying size in Lake Superior, and may be a model system for studying the effects of island biogeography on the carnivore community. Tim's group is in their third year of placing camera traps in a rigorous design on the islands. Their current studies are focusing on carnivore richness, occupancy, extinction and recolonization rates, and how these will be affected by climate change.