Feb. 15, 2022

Contact Rick Kyte at 608-796-3704 or rlkyte@viterbo.edu or Jill Miller at 608-796-3615 or jmmiller@viterbo.edu

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN WILDLIFE ECOLOGY PROFESSOR TO SPEAK AT VITERBO UNIVERSITY MARCH 3 

LA CROSSE, Wis. – University of Wisconsin department of wildlife ecology professor Timothy Van Deelen will present “Thinking Like a Mountain but Asking the Wrong Questions” as part of the D.B. Reinhart Institute for Ethics in Leadership’s spring lecture series at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 3 in the Viterbo University Fine Arts Center Nola Starling Recital Hall. The event will also be streamed on Facebook Live at https://www.facebook.com/viterboethics.

The presentation will cover Wisconsin’s recent wolf and deer controversies in the contest of Aldo Leopold’s adage “the oldest task in human history: to live on a piece of land without spoiling it” and how it influences urgent conservation needs in a world of divisiveness, nostalgia, and climate crisis.

Van Deelen’s main professional interest is the conservation of wildlife populations in the face of human influences. He has worked with several species, including black bears, wolves, deer, badgers, sandhill cranes, turkeys, and flying squirrels. He teaches the UW-Madison’s classes on animal population dynamics and his department’s senior capstone class focused on deer management. Van Deelen also serves as faculty director for GreenHouse, an undergraduate learning community whose members are interested in sustainable living housed in a dorm named for Aldo Leopold.

With a background in working for state management agencies, Van Deelen also brings expertise to designing and using monitoring systems, like Snapshot Wisconsin, that bridge the gap between researchers and the information needs of conservation agencies. He is the author/coauthor of more than 70 peer-reviewed papers on various aspects of wildlife biology but finds his greatest satisfaction in the contributions that his former students are making as wildlife professionals.

Van Deelen earned a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Calvin College, a Master of Science in Wildlife Biology from Montana University, and a PhD in Wildlife Ecology from Michigan State University.

The presentation is free and open to the public. A mask requirement is currently in effect at Viterbo University. No tickets are necessary, but seating is limited. 

For a full schedule of D.B. Reinhart Institute for Ethics in Leadership events, visit www.viterbo.edu/ethics.

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