• Matthew Kauffman
• Leah Yandow
• Annika Walters
• Scott Carleton
• Alyson Courtemanch
• Jenny Jones
• Doug Keinath
• Nicole Korfanta
• Arthur Middleton
• Kevin Monteith
• Tom Morrison
• Abby Nelson
• Hall Sawyer
• Janess Vartanian
• Teal Wyckoff
• Matthew Hethcoat
• Anika Mahoney
• Jason Carlisle
• Carlin Girard
• Joslin Heyward
• Anna Chalfoun

Training an immature harpy eagle for public education programs in Panama.

Exercising a falcon to the lure in Northumberland, UK.

Traveling with eagle hunters in Bayan Ulgii, Mongolia.

Transporting a bald eagle fledgling to a release site at Inwood Hill Park in New York City.

Working with Cinnabar, an adult female golden eagle, in Gloucestershire, UK.

Fitting an Argos GPS backpack (North Star Science and Technology) to a juvenile bald eagle during work on the Inwood Hill Bald Eagle Project in New York.

These three fledgling eagles are drying off after a thunderstorm, showing their GPS backpacks.

Arthur Middleton is a Ph.D. candidate in the Program in Ecology at the University of Wyoming, based in the Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit within the Department of Zoology and Physiology. Prior to starting his research, Arthur received a master’s degree in environmental management from Yale University and a bachelor’s degree in English and government from Bowdoin College. Before coming to Wyoming, most of Arthur’s experience was with birds of prey - as a falconer, he trained raptors species for public education and for hunting, and as a field biologist, he contributed to the study and conservation swallow-tailed kites in South Carolina, harpy eagles in Panama, and bald eagles in New York. During his time in Wyoming, he has  coordinated the Absaroka Elk Ecology Project in collaboration with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, studying elk migration and elk-wolf interactions in the Absaroka Mountains. The primary focus of Arthur's research has been to evaluate the relative influence of top-down (predation risk) versus bottom-up (habitat quality) forces on the nutrition and reproduction of elk, as well as their seasonal migrations. He is also involved in several new and ongoing projects in Wyoming that investigate the ecology of ungulate migration, antipredator behavior, and reproduction. Arthur has received a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, a Doris Duke Conservation Fellowship, and a Resident Fellowship at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming. He anticipates finishing his Ph.D. in summer 2012, when he will begin a two-year Donnelly Postdoctoral Fellowship at Yale University. During that time, Arthur will be initiating new research with Emiliano Donadio and others on the ecology of a high, semi-arid Andean food web in Argentina, where pumas and condors interact strongly with native camelids.

Download Arthur's CV

Publications

Middleton, A.D., M.J. Kauffman, D.E. McWhirter, J.G. Cook, R.C. Cook, A.A. Nelson, M.D. Jimenez, and R.W. Klaver. In press. Animal migration amid shifting patterns of phenology and predation: Lessons from a Yellowstone elk herd. Ecology.

Cross, P.C., E.K. Cole, A.P. Dobson, W.H. Edwards, K.L. Hamlin, G. Luikart, A.D. Middleton, B.M. Scurlock, and P.J. White. 2010. Probable causes of increasing elk brucellosis in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Ecological Applications 20: 278-288. 

Martínez del Rio, C. and A.D. Middleton. 2010. Laws for ecology? (book review). Ecology 91:1244-1245. 

Pauli, J.N., J.P. Whiteman, M. Riley, and A.D. Middleton. 2010. Defining noninvasive for sampling of vertebrates. Conservation Biology 24:349-352. 

In review/revision

Nelson, A.A., M.J. Kauffman, A.D. Middleton, M.D. Jimenez, D.E. McWhirter, J. Barber, and K. Gerow. Accepted. Elk migration patterns and human activity influence wolf habitat use in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Ecological Applications.

Christianson, D., R.W. Klaver, A.D. Middleton, and M.J. Kauffman. In review. Confounded winter and spring effects on temperate herbivore ranges.

Koch, B.J., A.D. Middleton, R.O. Hall, and B.L. Peckarsky. In revision. Secondary production integrates behavioral, physiological, and life history effects in diverse prey taxa.

In preparation

Middleton, A.D., M.J. Kauffman, and C. Martinez del Rio. Prey nutritional condition: a common influence on antipredator behavior and the 'ecology of fear' (Synthesis).

Nelson, A.A., M.J. Kauffman, A.D. Middleton, M.D. Jimenez, and D.E. McWhirter, and K. Gerow. A comparison of wolf depredation sites in areas with migratory and resident prey.

Selected presentations

Middleton, A.D., M.J. Kauffman, M.D. Jimenez, D.E. McWhirter, A.A. Nelson, J.C. Cook, and R.C. Cook. Evaluating a proposed non-consumptive effect of wolves on elk in Yellowstone. Annual Meeting of The Wildlife Society, Kona, Hawaii, November 2011 (and Annual Meeting of the Wyoming Chapter of The Wildlife Society, Jackson, WY, December 2011).

Middleton, A.D. Animal migration amid shifting patterns of phenology and predation: Lessons from a Yellowstone elk herd. Invited seminar, Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, University of Wisconsin - Madison, Madison, WI,  23 September 2011.

Middleton, A.D. Changing times in Wyoming elk country: Large carnivores, drought, and elk migration. Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Annual Habitat Council Retreat, Cody, WY, 11 June 2011.

Middleton, A.D. The ecology of elk migration in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo, Universidad Nacional de La Plata, La Plata, Argentina, 18 March 2011.

Middleton, A.D., M.J. Kauffman, D.E. McWhirter, M.D. Jimenez,  J.G. Cook, R.C. Cook, and A.A. Nelson. Do predators influence the condition and reproduction of their prey? Annual Meeting of the Wyoming Chapter of The Wildlife Society. Lander, WY, November 2010.

Middleton, A.D., M.J. Kauffman, D.E. McWhirter, J.G. Cook, R.C. Cook, A.A. Nelson, M.D. Jimenez, and R.W. Klaver. Large carnivore recovery and long-term drought reduce the benefits of migration for a Yellowstone elk herd. Invited seminar, Faculty Seminar Series, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, New Haven, CT, October 2010. 

Middleton, A.D., M.J. Kauffman, D.E. McWhirter, J.G. Cook, R.C. Cook, A.A. Nelson, M.D. Jimenez, and R.W. Klaver. Large carnivore recovery and long-term drought reduce the benefits of migration for a Yellowstone elk herd. Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America, Pittsburgh, PA, August 2010.

Middleton, A.D., M.J. Kauffman, D.E. McWhirter, J.G. Cook, R.C. Cook, A.A. Nelson, M.D. Jimenez, and R.W. Klaver. Large carnivore recovery and severe drought reduce the benefits of migration for a Yellowstone elk herd. Annual Meeting of the American Society of Mammalogists, Laramie, WY, June 2010. Reported by Science News. 

Middleton, A.D. Drought, predation, and migratory Clarks Fork elk. Several talks given at the Wyoming Game and Fish Department's Cody All-Region Meeting and Terrestrial Habitat Section Annual Meeting and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Wolf Recovery Annual Meeting. Cody and Kelly, WY and West Yellowstone, MT. May-June 2010.

Middleton, A.D. Drought, predation, and migratory Clarks Fork elk. Invited public presentations at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, WY and Teton County Library in Jackson, WY. May 2010. Reported by the Billings Gazette.

Middleton, A.D. The shifting benefits of migration for Clarks Fork elk. Annual Meeting of the Wyoming Chapter of The Wildlife Society. Cody, WY, November 2009.

Scholarships and Fellowships 

Projects

Absaroka Elk Ecology Project

Absaroka Wolf-Livestock Project