Tara Meyer, PhD student, University of Montana

Tara’s interests in science drove her to study ecology as an undergraduate at Colgate University, and afterwards, technician positions studying African elephants in Tanzania and grey wolves in Wyoming. In 2015 Tara earned her MESc from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, studying snow leopards in western Tajikistan. After Yale, Tara worked as a human-wildlife coexistence biologist with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, and then developed capacity building initiatives with the Wildlife Conservation Network. She was named an Emerging Wildlife Conservation Leader in 2017, and during her two-year fellowship she contributed research towards monitoring Grauer's gorillas in the DRC. For her PhD, Tara will examine how climate shifts in the Canadian Rockies influence predator-prey dynamics (part of the Ya Ha Tinda Long-Term Elk Monitoring project). Tara spends her free time with her husband David and daughter Madeline, exploring the outdoors with friends and visiting family in Oregon and Virginia.

Connor Meyer, PhD Student

Connor grew up in western Washington where he gained an appreciation for the outdoors by exploring the Cascade Mountains andpending time on the water in Puget Sound. After graduating from the University of Washington with a degree in wildlife conservation, he found his way onto the Yellowstone Wolf and Cougar Projects. After five years in Yellowstone Nationa Park, Connor joined the Hebblewhite Lab for his PhD and migrates north to the Ya Ha Tinda Long-Term Elk Monitoring Project. He is interested in understanding the intrinsic and extrinsic factors influencing an individual’s decision to switch migration tactics, including predation risk, forage quality and the previous year’s reproductive success. When not working, Connor can be found attempting to stave off injury while running, hiking, biking and skiing.

Jonathan Farr, MS Student

Jonathan was born in a small town at the edge of the Canadian Rockies in Alberta, Canada, and has always felt rooted to gravel bed rivers, wildflower-covered ridgelines, and shale slopes. Between semesters of his undergrad in Ecology at the University of Alberta, Jonathan landed a job as a park interpreter at Elk Island National Park. This led to working as a field technician in Banff National Park for several summers where he spent time whacking weeds, scoping out bighorn sheep, and finding feces from a variety of ungulates. Jonathan started his MSc at the University of Montana in 2022 and is studying the trophic ecology of Banff’s recently reintroduced Plains bison to understand how they may affect Banff’s bighorn sheep and the Ya Ha Tinda elk population. Constantly seeking the elusive balance between work and life, Jonathan enjoys volleyball, Nordic skiing, canoeing, and playing piano.

Birch Gano, Ya Ha Tinda Lead Field Biologist

Birch was born and raised in rural Alberta on a cattle ranch. She completed her undergraduate in biology at the University of Victoria. Birch has worked with species at risk including swift foxes, greater sage grouse, and Vancouver Island marmots. Birch’s interest in ungulate ecology, predator-prey relationships, and love for the field led her back to the Canadian Rockies where she now works as the lead field biologist on the Ya Ha Tinda Long-term Elk Monitoring project. Birch enjoys skiing, horseback riding, joining in on her friends hunting trips, or planning her next oversees adventure.