First Award Recipient Named - May 2, 2009

Eric York was an extraordinary wildlife biologist working for the National Park Service studying mountain lions at Grand Canyon National Park. In addition to his own research, Eric consulted for Felidae Conservation Fund on cat research around the world. Eric specialized in research capture methods and techniques. He had captured and tagged 23 different species of carnivores (six of these being felids) for research. Over the last 15 years he has worked throughout the United States, in Chile, Nepal, and Pakistan. Eric passed away on November 2, 2007 of the pneumonic plague.

The Eric York Scholarship Fund was created in Eric’s memory by Felidae Conservation Fund to enable young biologists to pursue their passions and to carry on Eric’s important work. The scholarship is available to graduate students pursuing scientific research for wild cat conservation.

Congratulations to our first Eric York Scholarship winner, Omar Figueroa! Our panel of five independent expert judges evaluated the numerous high quality proposals and selected Omar, the first PHD candidate from Belize to
bring his scientific expertise back to his home country. His project studying jaguars and pumas in central Belize promises to generate important data to help protect this important corridor for wildlife movements within Central America.

Felidae is proud to support Omar's valuable work, in remembrance of the career and life of late wildlife biologist Eric York, and we wish him the best of success with his research.

His study focuses on spatial ecology, behavior, and diet of jaguars and pumas in central Belize and will provide critical information on home-range, activity patterns, habitat use, social dynamics and prey base. Anthropogenic forces (e.g. roads, eco-tourism, logging, agriculture, illegal hunting) continue to fragment and reshape the region.This landscape provides good opportunity to use GPS tracking technology to advance our understanding of jaguar ecology and behavior. By delineating home-ranges and characterizing patterns of activities within these ranges, by describing habitat use and quantifying habitat features within core use areas, and quantitatively describing diet within this landscape, this study will provide needed information to help guide management and conservation. By quantifying the set of eco-geographical features that best define the jaguar’s use of space and by developing spatially explicit habitat models, this study will provide management tools with potential for immediate impact on conservation of jaguars. This is especially significant given recent trends in human-jaguar/puma conflicts and troubling patterns of jaguar and puma persecution in Belize.