Carolyn Callaghan

Carolyn Callaghan, PhD is an Adjunct Professor and Sessional Instructor at the Faculty of Environmental Design, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada. She is also Scientific and Executive Director of the Central Rockies Wolf Project, Canmore, AB, Canada. Finally, she is a Biological Consultant with the Canadian Institute for Conservation Biology where she is focusing on biophysical inventories and investigations of carnivore and ungulate use of wildlife corridors. Dr Callaghan obtained a Ph.D. in Zoology from the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada with a thesis on the ecology of wolf habitat use, survival, and persistence in the Central Canadian Rockies. Her B.Sc. in Biological Science (Honours) was also from the University of Guelph.

Dr Callaghan has been a Symposium Organizer of the North American Wolf Livestock Depredation Summit, Wildlife Society Meeting September 2004; a Conference Organizer of the World Wolf Congress 2003 (An international conference of 500 participants and 100 presenters September 25 – 28, 2003); and a Summit Organizer of the International Wolf Livestock Depredation Summit (An international symposium with 50 participants representing 15 countries September 25, 2003). She supervises graduate students’ work serving as Committee Member. Dr Callaghan is also a Member of the Banff National Park, Canada Elk Advisory Committee and a Science Advisor for the Yellowstone to Yukon Science Planning Workshop. During her career, she obtained the following academic awards and recognitions: 2003 Nominee for Province of Ontario Premiere Award for Academic Achievement, NSERC Postgraduate Scholarship (2 times, University of Guelph 1993 – 1997), and the College of Biological Science Scholarship, the Keith Ronald Scholarship, and the Parasitology Award from the University of Guelph.

Dr Callaghan often presents at regional, national and international conferences. The research projects conducted by her resulted in numerous reports with consequential management applications, and in articles published in peer-reviewed journals or in book chapters. In 2001, Dr Callaghan coauthored a chapter on restoring a large carnivore corridor in Banff National Park, which appeared in an important “Large mammal restoration” book published by Island Press (Duke, D. L. et al. Chapter 13 in D. S. Maehr, R. F. Noss, and J. L. Larkin eds. Large mammal restoration. Island Press, Washington). She co-authored with Musiani, another editor of this proposal, various studies on conflicts between wolves and human interests (example, Musiani, M. et al. 2003. Wolf Depredation trends and the use of fladry barriers to protect livestock in western North America. Conservation Biology 17: 1538-1547; and Musiani, M. et al. In Press. Wolves in Rural Agricultural Areas of Western North America. In People and Predators: From Conflict to Conservation. Fasione, N., Delach, A. and Smith, M. eds. Island Press). Dr Callaghan co-authored with Hebblewhite, a chapter contributor in this proposal, some studies on wolf-prey dynamics as an example of broader predator-prey dynamics (example, Hebblewhite, M. et al. 2003. Development and application of a ratio estimator to estimate wolf kill rates and variance in a multiple prey system. Wildlife Society Bulletin 3: 933-946). Currently, Dr Callaghan is intensively working on papers that will use wolves as models for wildlife use of habitat. She is also linking social behaviour to population viability analyses for the wolf population in the Central Canadian Rocky Mountains. All these projects focus on wolf ecology, but use this knowledge for explaining broader mechanisms involving wolves, competitors, herbivores, plants and weather. In addition, Dr Callaghan’s results point to the importance of human influences even in areas such as National Parks that are considered remote and wild.