UW Professor Named Wyoming Wildlife and Natural Resource Trust Partner of the Year

Kevin Monteith, a University of Wyoming professor and Wyoming Excellence Chair, recently was named the 2022 Partner of the Year by the Wyoming Wildlife and Natural Resource Trust (WWNRT).

Monteith has worked with the WWNRT on numerous projects in Wyoming in the past decade. He was singled out for his excellence in applied research that allows the organization’s board to more effectively improve habitats and conditions for wildlife.

Board Chair Kim Floyd, of Cheyenne, presented the award to Monteith in Thermopolis, noting that Monteith’s work on mule deer, elk, bighorn sheep and moose has provided a roadmap for effective habitat improvements throughout the state.

“Kevin has taught us a lot and, through his work and insight, we have been able to make some massive strides in management and improvement of conditions for multiple species,” Floyd says.

WWNRT Director Bob Budd adds that Monteith’s work “has real-world applications -- through the understanding we can gain from his work on nutrition, disease and all other aspects of animal behavior, we are able to more effectively leverage the assets of the state.”

Budd and Floyd cited work in the Wyoming Range, Sweetwater County, the Wind River and Absaroka mountains and, most recently, the Big Horn Basin and central Wyoming as examples of excellence.

Monteith has been teaching and mentoring students in UW’s Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources and Department of Zoology and Physiology since 2015. His research entails intensive field studies and focuses on establishing a protocol for habitat-based, sustainable management of large mammals while investigating the effects of predation, climate change and other disturbances.

The Partner of the Year award was created in 2010 to recognize the outstanding achievements and contributions of others to the diverse conservation portfolio of the state of Wyoming. The WWNRT has allocated more than $110 million in habitat and conservation projects since 2005, leveraging private, federal and other contributions for a direct impact of more than $800 million in local projects throughout the state. These include wetland development, river restoration, aspen regeneration, wildlife migration corridors, water development, rangeland improvements, invasive species control, conservation easements and research.

Past recipients of the WWNRT Partner of the Year include Little Snake River Conservation District; Trout Unlimited; Wyoming Stock Growers Land Trust; Amy Anderson, Jennifer Doering, Jill Randall and Ian Tator, all from the Wyoming Game and Fish Department; Richard Garrett, of The Nature Conservancy; Luke Lynch, of The Conservation Fund; Leah Burgess, of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation; and David Kimble, of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.