Waterfowl Research Foundation Fellowships

The Waterfowl Research Foundation recognizes that making significant investments in young professionals is key to sustaining waterfowl populations now and into the future.

About the fellowship

The Waterfowl Research Foundation Fellowships are open to graduate students enrolled at any North American university.

The purpose of the Waterfowl Research Foundation Fellowships is to develop critical scientific information about waterfowl and wetlands, contribute to the training of future waterfowl and wetland conservation professionals and honour the important role waterfowl hunters have played in supporting conservation throughout North America.

Students must possess a current hunting or sportsman license issued by the appropriate regulatory authority. Subject matter for the student’s research can deal with any aspect of waterfowl or wetland biology that promises to advance conservation.

Two awards of $12,000 per year (Canadian) are available to provide personal or research support for the successful applicant. The awards are renewable for up to two additional years for PhD students and once for Master’s students, assuming annual approval of a satisfactory progress report, continued possession of a valid hunting or sportsman licence and the need for continuing financial support.

It will be awarded based upon the following criteria:

Applicants qualifications, including any participation in waterfowl hunting
Scientific soundness of the research proposal
Originality and creativity in study design
Expected contributions to waterfowl conservation
Achievability of the work

Interested in applying or have any questions?

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Recent fellowship winners

Dominic Hockenbury

Dominic will investigate how game-farm mallard releases have affected the genetics, behavior, and sensory abilities of wild mallard populations across North America during his PhD at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry.

For over a century, millions of game-farm mallards have been released across North America. Hybridization between these captive-bred birds and wild mallards has introduced genes associated with reduced migration, lower feeding efficiency, and increased use of urban habitats. Dominic will:

Use genome-wide association studies on thousands of mallard genomes to identify specific genetic regions linked to game-farm ancestry and altered behavior
Image mallard bills to determine whether game-farm mallards have reduced sensory structures that could explain their lower feeding efficiency
Model how game-farm alleles may persist or decline under different management scenarios using evolutionary simulations

Dominic’s research will provide science-based guidance for sustaining genetically wild, resilient mallard populations and inform management decisions about game-farm releases.

Dominc Hockenbury measuring a ducks wing

Cory Highway

A student from Tennessee Technological University. His project investigates how the strategic addition of waterfowl rest areas affects the ecology and management of mallards during the non-breeding period.

Public properties that are not used for hunting serve as refuges for migrating and wintering waterfowl. However, refuges may be too far apart and result in heavy concentrations of waterfowl. Cory will:

Work with private landowners to introduce 30–120 ha rest areas across western Tennessee to increase connectivity and potentially balance waterfowl distribution
Deploy GPS transmitters on mallards to examine how rest area establishment changes how mallards use the landscape
Use autonomous recorders to count the number of gunshots and identify if implementation of rest areas changes hunter opportunities

Cory’s research will provide a framework to understand whether strategic placement of waterfowl rest areas can benefit wintering waterfowl and waterfowl hunters.

Cory Highway conducting research in the field

Past Fellowship Winners

2023-2025: Lauren McFarland, PhD. Reconstructing the genomic history and conservation threat from a century of game-farm Mallard releases in North America, University of Texas at El Paso.

2021-2023: Rob Blenk, PhD. Development and application of an agent-based model as a novel approach to winter waterfowl survival and energetics, University of California Davis

2019-2020: Cynthia Anchor, MSc. Investigating the post-fledging movement and ecology of hatch-year mallards in the Dakotas, South Dakota State University

2018-2019: Joshua Brown, PhD. Long-term genetic effects of game-farm mallard releases on wild mallards in North America, University of Texas at El Paso.

2017: Clay Stroud, MSc. Relating diets and food availability to long-term population trends of Lesser Scaup wintering on Lake Pontchartrain, Louisiana, Louisiana State University

Institute for Wetland and Waterfowl Research

Waterfowl Research Foundation Fellowships

About the fellowship

Interested in applying or have any questions?

Recent fellowship winners

Past Fellowship Winners

Institute for Wetland and Waterfowl Research

About IWWR

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