Leader Hired for New Fish and Wildlife Unit (0407210)

July 21, 2004

Lincoln, Neb. — A leader has been hired for a new fish and wildlife research unit headquartered at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Wildlife ecologist Craig Allen will head the Nebraska Fish and Wildlife Cooperative Research Unit, a partnership that includes UNL's School of Natural Resources, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission and the Wildlife Management Institute.

Allen has served as leader of a similar unit in South Carolina, at Clemson University.

The new, federally funded research unit in Nebraska will have three USGS scientists, including Allen, doing research on behalf of the project's partners and the state. Allen said he plans to hire a fisheries scientist and a wildlife biologist to complete his team.

"I'm most excited about being able to build a program. It's a unique, completely new organization in Nebraska," he said.

Kirk Nelson, assistant director of the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, who, along with John Owens, vice chancellor of the university's Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources, met with the candidates, said, "We feel privileged to have this quality of a candidate coming here."

Owens agreed. "It's exciting to think of the opportunities this new federal unit will offer for the natural resources of Nebraska."

One of Allen's specialties is research on invasive species, particularly fire ants in the southern United States, said School of Natural Resources fisheries professor Ed Peters. Other invasive species pose equally challenging problems in Nebraska, and Allen's background makes him well prepared to address these concerns, he said.

Allen and the other scientists will be employed by the USGS Biological Resource Discipline since the unit is funded with $400,000 in a federal authorization bill signed by President Bush in 2003. With key assistance from its congressional delegation, Peters added, Nebraska now joins 37 other states with similar cooperatives.

7/21/04-CF