About Us

Born into a large family that eventually settled in Colorado, David has been fascinated by nature ever since
he can remember and found birds as a way to focus his analytical mind. He found out about this Master’s
program while guiding at a birding festival in Del Rio, and is grateful to pursue his goals at the Borderlands
Research Institute. He is passionate about spreading a love of nature, education, and conservation research.

The use of sound to survey for small wildlife from birds and bats to amphibians and insects has gained momentum in recent years because of the efficiency and low cost of deploying recording units rather than physical observers. David’s project focuses on using this novel technique to monitor a rare and elusive gamebird species, the Montezuma quail, and in doing so, testing if this technique can be more broadly applied to monitor other wildlife.