{"id":1347,"date":"2022-04-11T15:02:07","date_gmt":"2022-04-11T15:02:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grad.biology.ualberta.ca\/boyce\/?page_id=1347"},"modified":"2025-10-29T23:13:56","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T23:13:56","slug":"wyatt-villetard","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/grad.biology.ualberta.ca\/boyce\/wyatt-villetard\/","title":{"rendered":"Wyatt Villetard, M.Sc.,  Research Assistant"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/grad.biology.ualberta.ca\/boyce\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/51\/2023\/01\/wyatt-pintail.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-1379\" src=\"https:\/\/grad.biology.ualberta.ca\/boyce\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/51\/2023\/01\/wyatt-pintail.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"413\" height=\"502\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt\"><strong>Movement ecology of Sandhill Cranes in Alberta.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>My research focuses on the movement ecology of Sandhill Cranes (Antigone canadensis)<br \/>\nthroughout Alberta. Specifically nesting Sandhill Cranes. In 2020, the Government of Alberta<br \/>\ninstituted a Sandhill Crane harvest. To date, there has not been a study conducted on nesting<br \/>\nSandhill Crane ecology in Alberta. Specific concerns have been raised as to whether Alberta\u2019s<br \/>\nnesting population is large enough to support a fall harvest. By deploying 15 GPS transmitters,<br \/>\nand by using autonomous recording units (ARUs) in the summer of 2023, we plan to build a<br \/>\npopulation distribution map, determine habitat selection via a step-selection function (SSF)<br \/>\nduring the summer nesting season, and learn if small nesting populations are at risk of over-<br \/>\nharvest.<\/p>\n<p>2025 Update:<\/p>\n<p>Watt Villetard (funded by ACA and SCINAC) successfully defended his master\u2019s thesis in April of 2025 after working with Dr. Mark Boyce since 2022. Wyatt\u2019s project focused on Alberta\u2019s local Sandhill Crane population (<em>Antigone canadensis<\/em>) and their nesting habitat selection and migratory behaviour. Using the Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institutes \u201cEcosystem Health Grid\u201d Wyatt was able systematically sample a large portion of northern Alberta and was successfully able to predict high quality nesting season habitat through the use of a resource selection function or RSF. Wyatt intends to publish his thesis in collaboration with Dr. Mark Boyce and Dr. Erin Bayne in the <em>Avian Conservation and Ecology<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Movement ecology of Sandhill Cranes in Alberta. My research focuses on the movement ecology of Sandhill Cranes (Antigone canadensis) throughout Alberta. Specifically nesting Sandhill Cranes. In 2020, the Government of Alberta instituted a Sandhill Crane harvest. To date, there&hellip; <br \/><a class=\"read-more-button\" href=\"https:\/\/grad.biology.ualberta.ca\/boyce\/wyatt-villetard\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1347","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/grad.biology.ualberta.ca\/boyce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/grad.biology.ualberta.ca\/boyce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/grad.biology.ualberta.ca\/boyce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grad.biology.ualberta.ca\/boyce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grad.biology.ualberta.ca\/boyce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1347"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/grad.biology.ualberta.ca\/boyce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1347\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1742,"href":"https:\/\/grad.biology.ualberta.ca\/boyce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1347\/revisions\/1742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grad.biology.ualberta.ca\/boyce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}