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

It has been mused that the Oklahoma Wildlife Research Unit was established in the heat of a Texan night and the cool of an Oklahoman dawn when Walter P. Taylor, the first Unit Leader, moved its mission (and equipment!) from College Station to Stillwater in 1948. The Texas Rangers failed to catch him before the Red River, or so the story goes! The Oklahoma Unit has since risen to state, regional, national, and international prominence due to its dedicated graduate students, field and laboratory technicians, cooperating faculty and agencies, and staff.

The national Cooperative Units Program began as a dream of Iowan Ding Darling - renowned cartoonist and conservationist of the early 1900s. The Oklahoma Wildlife Unit was among the first and was established in cooperation with Oklahoma State University (in the Department of Zoology), the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation, and the United States Department of Interior (aligned with the Fish and Wildlife Service for most of its history). The Oklahoma Cooperative Fishery Research Unit was established in 1965, and the two units were combined in 1984. The core mission of the Oklahoma Unit has remained unchanged since its establishment: education of graduate-level professionals in resource management - traditionally fisheries and wildlife - through research of vital interest to Cooperators.