Wildlife and Fisheries Resources Program

The Wildlife and Fisheries Resources Program at West Virginia University is a fully accredited program with undergraduate, M.S., and Ph.D. programs that can lead to professional certification as wildlife or fisheries biologists. This curriculum focuses on both wildlife and fisheries; preparing students for careers or graduate education in both fields, in the area of management, biology, and ecology.

Traditionally, our students have found jobs primarily with local, state and federal resource management agencies. Many of our undergraduate graduates have used the training they received at WVU as a springboard to graduate school at other universities, while many of the biologists within the West Virginia Division of Wildlife are former graduates of the Wildlife and Fisheries Resources Program at WVU. Faculty and graduate students conduct applied research on the critical problems addressing wildlife and fisheries resources in the Appalachian region and other world ecosystems.

Enrollment in the WFR program is approximately 175 undergraduates. There are currently over 30 M.S. students and over 10 doctoral students in the program, focusing on topics as far ranging as behavioral responses of songbirds to timbering; management of mammalian and amphibian populations; ecology and management of wetlands; stream and river ecology; linking land use to brook trout production; and life history, reproductive biology, and trophic ecology of fishes. Fourteen graduate students completed their degrees in 2004.

The West Virginia University WFR Program sports a well-established student subsection of The Wildlife Society. The Society was established in 1966. In 2001, a student subsection of the West Virginia Chapter of the American Fisheries Society was established at WVU. The Wildlife and Fisheries Societies have worked together to provide training, education and professional networking opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students at WVU.