The award goes to Gunther, the newest faculty member of HSU’s Department of Wildlife, in association with the Smithsonian National Zoological Park. The formal title of the honor is the Association of Zoos (AZA) & Aquariums Conservation Endowment Fund (CEF) Award. The money is provided annually to zoo and aquarium projects not normally eligible for the regular Disney Wildlife Conservation Fund program.
In a notification letter, Disney officials told Dr. Gunther, “We are very proud to be associated with the important work Humboldt State University is doing.”
The genetic aspect of the project supports the creation of a baseline genetic database to monitor African wild dogs’ population viability. It also funds a determination if adequate numbers of genetically-diverse packs have been released and whether certain compromises in fitness are correlated to reduced genetic diversity.
Dr. Gunther said, “The resulting information will be important to decision-makers, as we expect that the restricted and fragmented range is contributing to an increasing loss of gene diversity in African wild dogs.”
Professor Gunther earned her Ph.D. at Michigan State University, studying under Kay Holekamp, the well-known hyena specialist, and lived more than three years in Kenya, where she investigated the reproductive behavior of a unique species, the spotted hyena.
Dr. Gunther’s interest in understanding the hormone physiology that underlies reproductive behavior and success of individual members of social groups led her to the Smithsonian National Zoological Park’s Conservation & Research Center (CRC) to learn skills in non-invasive hormone monitoring. While at Smithsonian, Dr. Gunther initiated a field project in South Africa that utilizes a multidisciplinary approach to study pack formation, inter-specific competition and stress and fitness in reintroduced packs of African wild dogs.
In collaboration with researchers in South Africa and colleagues at the CRC, the project integrates behavioral, spatial, genetic and hormonal data collected from the entire population of wild dogs living in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Dr. Gunther is Director of the African Wild Dog Reintroduction and Conservation Program in the province.
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