What have we been up to?

Summer 2026

• Miranda travels to Mozambique, Africa to help launch a game camera study investigating how herbivore communities reassemble across a seasonally inundated floodplain over the progression of the dry season​ in Gorongosa National Park!
• Claire was hired as our new program manager in June.
• Ashlyn attends and presents her ongoing research at the Interstate CWD Meeting in Wilmington, DE. 
• Calvin finishes another successful mule deer fawning season in the OK Panhandle.
• Callie Hauser (M.S.) and Cooper Olson (M.S.) join the lab!
• The Heffelfinger Research Team attends the annual TPWD Mule Deer and Pronghorn Committee Meeting in Alpine, TX. Ashlyn, Austin, Calvin, Levi, and Claire present on ongoing lab research updates. 
• Research updates are given by Ashlyn, Calvin, Levi, and Claire at various Texas landowner day events. 
• Levi, Callie, and Claire attend the 31st Biennial Western Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies (WAFWA) Pronghorn Workshop in Colorado Springs, CO. 
• Katie and Miranda visit and update camera project grids in the Rolling Plains and Hill Country regions.

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Spring 2026

• Ashlyn and Austin complete a second successful capture and collaring season for the multi-cervid Texas CWD project. 
• Calvin completes another successful adult mule deer capture and collaring season in the OK Panhandle. 
• Levi attends and presents at the International Deer Biology Congress conference in New Zealand. 
• The Heffelfinger Research Team attends and presents ongoing research at Texas Chapter of TWS Annual Meeting. 
• The Western Panhandle Pronghorn Movement project completes a successful capture and collaring season and begins data collection to kickstart the upcoming wider Texas pronghorn project. 
• Ashlyn, Austin, Calvin, and Levi attend and speak at the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation (RMEF) Lone Star Elk Day event in Dallas, TX. 
• Celine Rickels successfully defends her M.S. thesis and moves onto her next career step as a biologist in Idaho! Yay!

Fall 2025

• The Heffelfinger Research Team attends the annual The Wildlife Society (TWS) Conference in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
• Dr. Heffelfinger, Ashlyn, and Bailey attend CKWRI Partners Meetings in Dallas and Ft. Worth to share more about the North Texas Research Program.
• Katie and Bailey kick off the Rolling Plains deer project by deploying cameras at Matador WMA.
• The Heffelfinger Research Team attends the annual TPWD Mule Deer and Pronghorn Technical Meeting.
• Ashlyn attends the Wildlife Disease Association Conference in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Ashlyn won the WDA Terry Amundson Presentation Award!

Summer 2025

• Katie and Bailey go to Utah to kick off the Grass Valley trail camera project.
• Calvin, Ashlyn, and Dr. Heffelfinger attend the Western Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies (WAFWA) Deer and Elk Workshop in B.C. Canada.

Spring 2025

• Katie Pennartz (Ph.D.) and Austin Ibarra (M.S.) join the lab.
• Dr. Heffelfinger, Bailey, and Celine attend the last adult pronghorn helicopter capture for the Oklahoma pronghorn project.
• The Heffelfinger Research Team attends the second adult mule deer captures for the Oklahoma mule deer project.
• The Heffelfinger Research Team attends the inaugural CWD project captures by catching mule deer, white-tailed deer, and elk in the Texas Panhandle and mule deer in the Trans-Pecos.

Fall 2024

• Bailey, Ashlyn, Miranda, and Calvin attend The Wildlife Society conference in Baltimore, Maryland.​
• Bailey, Ashlyn, Miranda, and Calvin assist TPWD with desert bighorn sheep translocation efforts.
• Miranda kicks off her dissertation field work.

Summer 2024

• The North Texas Research Program officially opens in Lubbock.
• Bailey Kleeberg, Ashlyn Halseth-Ellis (Ph.D.), and Miranda Hopper (Ph.D.) join the lab.
• Celine has a very successful pronghorn fawning season in Oklahoma.
• The Heffelfinger Research Team attends the TPWD Pronghorn & Mule Deer Technical Meeting.

Spring 2024

• Calvin continues in the lab and starts his Ph.D.
• Celine Rickels (M.S.) joins the lab.

2023

• Calvin successfully defends his M.S. thesis. Congratulations!
• Calvin wins TAMUK Outstanding Range & Wildlife Science Graduate Student.
• Calvin is awarded the 2023 Boone & Crockett Fellow Outstanding Achievement Award.

A capture from the CWD project's second successful season.

Ashlyn, Austin, Levi, and an elk from the second CWD project captures.

Calvin's last mule deer capture season in the Oklahoma Panhandle.

Levi (left) with other professionals attending the 11th International Deer Biology Congress conference in New Zealand.

Ashlyn, Austin, Calvin, and Levi attend the RMEF Lone Star Elk Day in Dallas, TX.

Celine with Levi upon her successful M.S. thesis defense!

Part of the Heffelfinger Research Team with Jim Heffelfinger at TWS in Edmonton, AB, CA.

Calvin Ellis presenting his poster at WAFWA Deer and Elk Workshop.

Calvin, Bailey, Miranda, and Ashlyn assisted TPWD on a Desert Bighorn translocation effort in the Trans-Pecos in 2024.