Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units Program:
Education, Research and Technical Assistance for Managing Our Natural Resources

Arthur Middleton is a Ph.D. candidate in the Program in Ecology at the University of Wyoming, based in the Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit within the Department of Zoology and Physiology. . Prior to starting his research, Arthur received a master's degree in environmental management from Yale University and a bachelor's degree in English and government from Bowdoin College. Before coming to Wyoming, most of Arthur's experience was with birds of prey - as a falconer, he trained numerous raptor species for public education and for hunting, and as a field assistant, he contributed to studies of the swallow-tailed kite in South Carolina and the harpy eagle in Panama. He was also responsible for the field component of a bald eagle restoration project in New York. Since coming to Wyoming in 2007, Arthur has coordinated the Absaroka Elk Ecology Project in collaboration with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, studying elk migration and elk-wolf interactions in the Absaroka Mountains. The primary focus of his dissertation research is evaluating the relative influence of top-down (predation risk) versus bottom-up (habitat quality) forces on the nutritional condition and reproduction of elk. Arthur is also initiating new work with Emiliano Donadio and others on the ecology of a high Andean food web in Argentina, where pumas and condors interact strongly with native camelids. Arthur has received a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, a Do...