Natural Resource Management (includes Wildlife & Fisheries)

Program Description

Department graduate programs typically fall into either the MS or PhD degrees in Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences, or the MS and PhD programs in Biological Sciences.  Faculty expertise includes Ecology and Environmental Sciences, Range Science, and Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences.  In addition, other programs are available cooperatively on campus.  For example, some of the Range Science graduate students in the Department of Natural Resource Management can choose to seek an MS or PhD in Animal Science rather than Biological Sciences.  The Department houses the SD Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, which is a cooperative effort among SDSU, the SD Department of Game, Fish and Parks, the US Department of the Interior (US Geological Survey), and the Wildlife Management Institute.  Several faculty members in the Geographic Information Science Center of Excellence are also housed in the Natural Resource Management Department.  In general, students are not accepted into the Department’s graduate program unless an assistantship can be provided.  Therefore, a major advisor typically must have funding secured before a student is formally accepted into the graduate program.  The major advisor is assigned at the time of acceptance into the program.  The Department cooperates with a variety of internal and external funding entities to support research projects.