May 22, 2012
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CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – The National Military Fish and Wildlife Association (NMFWA) recently named Dr. Tim Hayden, ERDC Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (CERL), as the recipient of the 2012 NMFWA Military Natural Resource Conservation Research Fish and Wildlife Award. Hayden was recognized for his research which has provided significant scientific knowledge toward conservation and recovery of threatened and endangered species (TES), while reducing restrictions on training and testing activities on numerous U.S. Army installations, such as Forts Hood, Texas, Bragg, N.C., and Irwin, Calif.
According to a NMFWA news release, Hayden’s leadership as ERDC’s program manager for TES research has greatly improved scientific knowledge, inventory and monitoring capabilities, management and recovery of many listed and at-risk species. His knowledge of ecology and the conduct of scientific discovery led to unchallenged results that have been invaluable to the Department of Defense (DOD). He has coordinated and contributed to a number of high-profile biological agreements that save the Army and DOD major resources for inventory and management of sensitive species.
For example, Hayden’s research on the black-capped Vireo and Golden-cheeked Warbler at Fort Hood supported a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Biological Opinion that reduced restrictions on acreage managed for these species by nearly 82 percent. He personally conducted research and provided leadership for programs resulting in a knowledge base that was incorporated into the 2007 Army-wide Guidelines for Managing the Red-cockaded Woodpecker (RCW). This supported consultation and the reduction of military acreage restrictions due to the RCW by nearly 60 percent, and a phased 100 percent reduction of all transient training restrictions on Forts Bragg, Stewart and Benning, Ga., and Polk, La.
Hayden’s research program also contributed to the down-listing of the endangered gray bat and new technologies to inventory endangered Indiana bat populations. It has addressed important management issues such as alternative survey methodologies for the Mohave ground squirrel on Fort Irwin and the effects of human disturbance on the gopher tortoise at several Southeastern Army installations; both are designated as Army Species at Risk. His program and leadership were instrumental in the Army becoming a participant in an interagency gopher tortoise Candidate Conservation Agreement, a collaboration of multiple state, federal and non-government stakeholders with the goal of implementing adequate protections and management actions to prevent this species from being listed in the rest of its range these resources.
NMFWA is a non-profit organization consisting of professional resource managers working to protect and manage wildlife and other natural resources on DOD lands. Hayden received the award in March at the NMFWA annual meeting in Atlanta.