Wildlife Supervisor, Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks

Jon Beckmann, Ph.D., is a Wildlife Supervisor for the Kansas Department of Wildlife & Parks (KDWP) and an Adjunct Faculty member with graduate faculty status at the University of Nevada-Reno and Utah State University. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Nevada (UNR) where he focused his dissertation work on comparing black bears at the wildland-urban interface to wildland bears. In his previous roles, he served as the Director of Wildlife Science for the Rocky Mountain Program at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the Connectivity Initiative Coordinator for the North America Program at WCS, where he was for 20 years. Beckmann currently sits as the KDWP representative on the WAFWA Wildlife Movement and Migration Working Group.

Beckmann has been the Principal Investigator on several projects in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and in other regions of North America. His research and conservation projects have focused on the impacts of natural gas development and other anthropogenic factors on ungulate (pronghorn, moose, and elk) migrations in the Yellowstone ecosystem and northern Rockies. Beckmann also has a 25+ year study investigating the impacts of urban environments on black bears and reducing human-bear conflicts along the wildland-urban interface in the Lake Tahoe Basin of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. He has spent the past 25+ years examining connectivity for large carnivores in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and northern Rockies, examining wildlife connectivity for jaguars and other species (e.g. bears, cougars, and T&E nectarivorous bats) along the U.S.-Mexico border and understanding how human-altered environments impact cougar ecology, behavior, and population dynamics in the Great Basin Desert.

Along with >70 peer-reviewed journal publications and 9 book chapters, Beckmann is the lead editor of an Island Press book titled Safe Passages: Highways, Wildlife, and Habitat Connectivity. His work over the past 25 years has led to the return of black bears to the Great Basin Desert following an 80-year absence, and the population now totals >700 bears. In 2017, Beckmann was an invited panelist and speaker at the United States Capital for the Wildlife Corridors and Saving America’s Biodiversity event. Beckmann, E.O. Wilson and others were invited by Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) and Senator Tom Udall (D-NM) to make the case for a National Wildlife Corridors Act.