Washington, DC—The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) announced today the 2017 winners of its Christine Stevens Wildlife Award. Established in 2006, the Christine Stevens Wildlife Award provides grants of up to $10,000 to help fund studies on innovative and humane strategies for resolving wildlife conflicts and studying wildlife.
“AWI offers its hearty congratulations to the recipients of this year’s grants. We are pleased to support these innovative projects to find more humane methods to prevent conflicts between wild animals and humans and for the study of wildlife,” said Cathy Liss, president of AWI. “We are encouraged by the increasing advancements being made to address wildlife conflict issues and methodologies to study wildlife in a humane, forward-thinking, practical, and publicly acceptable way and look forward to reporting on the outcomes of these projects in the future.”
The 2017 Christine Stevens Wildlife Award grant winners are as follows:
- Dr. Stewart Breck of the USDA’s National Wildlife Research Center and Colorado State University for improving fladry, a nonlethal tool to deter coyotes and thereby reduce predation pressure on the endangered black-footed ferret.
- Dr. Elizabeth Burgess of the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life at the New England Aquarium for developing noninvasive biomarkers to better monitor threats to the health of Florida manatees.
- Beth A. Fitzpatrick of the University of Wyoming for studying the effectiveness of noninvasive methods to monitor greater sage-grouse populations.
- Dr. Rachel Graham of MarAlliance for a noninvasive study to document and conserve ray species along Mexico’s Caribbean coast.
- Jason Holmberg of Wild Me for modernizing the study of Hawaiian hawksbill sea turtles using noninvasive photo-identification tools and computer technology.
- Dr. Andrea Morehouse of Waterton Biosphere Reserve for assessing the effectiveness of nonlethal mitigation strategies to reduce conflicts involving grizzly bears and livestock.
The Christine Stevens Wildlife Award is a grant program named in honor of AWI’s late founder and president for over 50 years, to honor her legacy and inspire a new generation of compassionate wildlife scientists, managers, and advocates. For over half a century, Stevens dedicated her life to reducing animal suffering both here and abroad. She founded AWI in 1951 to end the cruel treatment of animals in experimental laboratories. Inevitably, her work expanded to take on other animal welfare causes, including preventing animal extinctions, reforming methods used to raise animals for food, banning steel-jaw leghold traps, ending commercial whaling, and much more.
For more information about the Christine Stevens Wildlife Award and this year’s winners, please visit https://awionline.org/content/christine-stevens-wildlife-awards.
Amey Owen, (202) 446-2128, [email protected]
About The Christine Stevens Wildlife Award
The Christine Stevens Wildlife Award is a grant program named in honor of the late founder and president of the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI). The program provides grants of up to $10,000 to spur innovative and humane research to resolve wildlife conflicts and to study wildlife. With this grant program, AWI aims to honor Stevens’ legacy and inspire a new generation of compassionate wildlife scientists, managers, and advocates. For more information on the award, visit https://awionline.org/content/christine-stevens-wildlife-awards.