Travis Wooten

Travis Wooten serves San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance as a Research Coordinator in Recovery Ecology. In this role, he coordinates the California least tern and western snowy plover project at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton. Travis is interested in understanding the driving forces that determine fledgling rates for terns and plovers, and examining seasonal and yearly movements of plovers within metapopulations.

His team’s current projects include nest monitoring to determine nesting success, and the use of chick enclosures to help obtain better estimations of fledging rates for terns. To determine plover fledge rates, the team locates the adult males who tend to the broods and have established territories. Both species are banded for identification purposes. In the future, the team hopes to expand the banding program to include color-banding of adults and chicks to allow for individual identification and determination of key population parameters.

Travis earned his bachelor’s degree in Ecology from the University of Kansas. He has expertise in shorebird research, with an emphasis on plovers. He has also worked with grassland passerines, raptors, whooping cranes, and multiple species of grouse.