The Year in Review report highlights a few of the ~800 current manage­ment-oriented research projects conducted with State, Fed­eral, and university cooperators in FY22. More examples are available using this online search tool.

Reports and Outreach Platforms of Interest

• 2022 Year in Review
• 2022 Year in Review companion visual
• 2015-2022 Year in Review Collection
• 2022 Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Accessibility
• 2020 Research Abstracts

New Units in Michigan and Nevada

This has been another outstanding year for the CRU Program. Highlights of this past year include the creation of our 42nd unit at Michigan State University and the completion of hiring activities for 37 new unit scien­tists in 31 States.

• Fiscal year (FY) 2022 included a budget increase for the fourth year in a row and brought the budget to approximately $26 million (M).
• Part of the congressional budget language for this year’s increase was to establish a new unit in Michigan.
• The new Michigan Unit will be based at Michigan State University (MSU) in East Lansing, Michigan. Founding partners include Michigan Department of Natural Resources, MSU, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), USGS, and the Wildlife Management Institute (WMI).

Further, we are excited to welcome Nevada to the Cooperative Research Unit family. We look forward to working with all our collaborators to train the next generation of conservation professionals and provide high-quality science and technical assistance to meet the needs of our partners in Nevada.

Staffing Update

The recent budget increases allowed our program to actively fill positions over the past two years, with 37 new scientists brought onboard (26 in FY21 and 11 in FY22). However, 27 vacancies remained at the end of the FY22 owing to the loss of 14 scientists (retirements, resignations, death) over the past two years, and the addition of six new positions at the new units. Hiring actions have been initiated to fill another nine positions, including Unit Leader positions at the new Nevada and Michigan units.

Congrats, not Goodbye

We continue to grow our partnerships with key external collaborators such as WMI, The Wildlife Society, and USFWS. Thank you to our friends at WMI, and especially WMI President Steve Williams who has been a strong ally of and advocate for CRU for many decades. Steve, himself a product of the unit program, has helped CRU staff and scientists connect effectively with a broad range of natural resource conservation professionals on numerous conservation issues and initiatives over the years. Our congratulations to Steve on his upcoming retirement and our sincere gratitude for his long-term support and commitment to this program.

We also appreciate and recognize the work of WMI’s Chris Smith, Bill Moritz, Scot Williamson, and Jon Gassett for their hands-on assistance with individual units, and we thank Jennifer Mock for her efforts to help us better understand and meet priority conservation needs at the State and regional levels.

2022 Year in Review Highlights

• Animal migration
• Invasive species
• Decision science or Structured Decision Making
• Diseases of Fish and Wildlife
• Diversity, Equity, Inclusion
• Drought and Water Allocation
• Grassland Management
• Hunting and Fishing
• Population Monitoring and Modeling
• Species of Greatest Conservation Need
• Wildfire

The ONB features articles from Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units, U.S. Geological Survey. The Units are leading exciting, new fish and wildlife research projects that we believe our readers will appreciate reading about.

USGS Circular 1505, Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units—2022 Year in Review

USGS Companion Visual Story, Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units—2022 Year in Review