@shawnmccracken
Conservation Biologist | Ecologist | Professor at TAMUCC 🐢🐍🐸🦎🌳🧬 Focused on biodiversity, wildlife conservation, and STEM mentorship. Passionate about empowering students in science and advancing cutting-edge research in Texas and Ecuador.
More building Soft-Release Pens for Texas Tortoises!
Our core crew and an incredible group of volunteers have put in 100+ hrs racing the seasons to get these pens ready so forfeited tortoises can return to the wild before winter.
Huge thanks to all our partners and landowners making this possible!
Tried to visit the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, and Constitution Center while passing through Philly on the way home from the Diamondback Terrapin Working Group meeting, but with the NPS closed all I managed was a photo through the window. What a perfect analogy…😞
Tried to visit the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, and Constitution Center while passing through Philly on the way home from the Diamondback Terrapin Working Group meeting, but with the NPS closed all I managed was a photo through the window. Freedom isn’t free. What a perfect analogy…😞
I’m so honored and proud that my lab @themccrackenlab.bsky.social at TAMU-CC is leading a research-driven effort to help return waif Texas tortoises to the wild. This work is built on years of collaboration studying disease ecology, population genomics, and distribution patterns.
TX🐢 - Long-term monitoring sites are key to Texas tortoise conservation.
We’re establishing sites across Texas to study seasonal habitat use, movement, and stress responses using fine-scale GPS and digital radio tracking.
Research approved by TPWD, USFWS, landowners & TAMU-CC.
#texastortoise
Happy Texas Tortoise Day! 🐢
🐢Where Research Informs Management: The Case of the Texas Tortoise 🐢 Jackie Tleimat (PhD candidate) took science to the public, sharing her research to guide conservation efforts for the tortoise. #ConservationScience #ScienceForCommunity #WildlifeResearch #STEMOutreach #lifesciencestamucc
In the most untouched, pristine parts of the Amazon, birds are dying. Scientists may finally know why www.theguardian.com/environment/...
Now accepting proposals for symposia and workshops at the XIII Latin American Congress of Herpetology set for 23-27 February 2026 in fabulous Costa Rica! Deadline for proposals = 28 feb. 2025. 🐸 🦎 🐢 🐍 🐊
www.herpcr2026.com/inscription
These meeting are great fun, very educational & trilingual.
Leap into amphibian genomics 🐸 with this new year read.
The Amphibian Genomics Consortium (AGC) is advancing global efforts to sequence high-quality genomes and bridge the gap in amphibian research.
To review machine learning predictions, we use a Jupyter Notebook to review files from each site in order from highest- to lowest-scoring: github.com/kitzeslab/bi...
We do this for each day of recording in order to create detection histories for occupancy modeling.
McCracken Lab PhD Opportunity - Texas tortoise
Seeking a highly motivated and talented PhD student to join our collaborative and dynamic research team starting Fall 2025. Research on the Texas tortoise (Gopherus berlandieri). tinyurl.com/PhDTXtortoise
Great representation at the Texas Conservation Symposium. Ingleside Sandsheet pond plant communities, Texas tortoise, Texas Scarlet Snake, and the Texas Diamondback terrapin.
Congrats to PhD candidate Jackie Tleimat who was awarded first prize for her talk!
#biodiversity #conservation #research
