Organization
Point Loma Nazarene University
Mike Mooring
Profile
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Telephone6198492719
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ORCID0000-0002-5678-7995
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ReasonDeveloping a new course
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Address
address1: 3900 Lomaland Drive address2: Point Loma Nazarene University Biology city: San Diego postal: 92106 region: California country: US address1: 100 meters north of Hotel Savegre address2: Quetzal Education & Research Center (QERC) city: San Gerardo de Dota region: San Jose Province country: CR
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BiographyI was born in New York City a long time ago (the human population was 2.8 billion back then). Like some of you, I did not know what I wanted to do with my life, so I tried a lot of things. I worked in the social justice movement with Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers for six years, then I pursued a career in musical theater in NYC and Colorado for another six years, and I finally landed on the field of animal behavior while doing my undergraduate work at CU Boulder. I obtained a B.A. in Environmental, Population, and Organismic Biology (EPOB) at CU Boulder under my mentors Chuck Southwick and Marc Bekoff, and while there did research on mule deer for my Honors project starting in 1985 -- so I've been doing animal behavior research for 37 years! During that time I was privileged to be a research assistant for Joel Berger studying bison at Badlands National Park. My graduate training was at UC Davis in the Animal Behavior Graduate Group under Ben Hart and a number of famous animal behaviorists (e.g., Peter Marler, Dale Lott, Tim Caro, Sarah Hrdy, Bill Mason). I did my Ph.D. dissertation research in southern Africa in Zimbabwe studying parasite-defense grooming in impala and testing the 'programmed grooming model', followed by post-docs on the same topic in different species in South Africa, Namibia, Canada, and California. Over the past two decades I have done my research in the summer months with teams of advanced undergraduates and the occasional graduate student from another university. We have studied desert bighorn sheep (New Mexico), plains bison (Nebraska), and Neotropical mammals like jaguar, puma, and tapir (Costa Rica). Our 12 year study of bison was supported by the National Science Foundation, and we have now completed 12 years of field research in Costa Rica supported by San Diego Zoo Global and PLNU. In Costa Rica, we study large, elusive mammals with camera trap surveys and scent detection dogs, with a special interest in predators and their prey in the cloud forests of the Talamanca Cordillera. My team and I have published on a variety of topics relevant to animal behavior and conservation, including parasite defense, sexual segregation, behavioral endocrinology, sexual selection, acoustical communication, predator-prey interactions, circadian and lunar activity patterns, and road ecology. I teach courses in Conservation Ecology, Neotropical Ecology & Mammalogy, Ecology & Conservation, Animal Behavior, Vertebrate Biology, as well as Environmental & People. In the past, I also taught Animal Biology, Human Biology and Bioethics, and Anatomy & Physiology. Over the past 25 years, I have mentored over 50 advanced undergraduates for summer research, many of whom were co-authors on publications. I have been heavily involved in promoting sustainability and creation care on our campus, I help coordinate the Environmental Science program, advise the Environmental Studies program, and am the campus representative for the Au Sable Institute of Environmental Studies.
On a more personal note, I was raised in a quaint Presbyterian Church in New York but wandered from the faith for many years before encountering Jesus while in Zimbabwe. I met my wife in Zim and we were married in 1994 and spent our first year of married life in South Africa during the first year of Nelson Mandela's presidency. My wife Emma was born in Zambia and grew up in Zimbabwe with a year in U.K. She is a talented wildlife artist and writer, and a wonderful mother. We have two children -- our daughter did a Master's in public policy and lives in Germany, and our son was the first graduate of the Environmental Studies program. Other than teaching and research, I enjoy nature and sports photography, reading, and hiking rugged mountains in Costa Rica.