Ag/Env & Wildlife Sci

KINGSVILLE (September 13, 2023) — Dr. Richard Laughlin, associate professor and chair of the biological and health sciences department, recently received $2.4 million in federal funding from the United States Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (USDA APHIS) for Surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in Wild and Domestic Animal Populations in Central and South Texas. Coronaviruses, like SARS-CoV-2, have been documented in domestic...

KINGSVILLE (September 11, 2023) — Dr. Jianhong Jennifer Ren, professor of environmental engineering in the Frank H. Dotterweich College of Engineering at Texas A&M University-Kingsville was recently awarded $2 million from the National Science Foundation for Graduate STEM Education for Air and Water Resources Solutions in Coastal Communities. This research traineeship award will develop a new graduate training model to educate the next generation of environmental...

KINGSVILLE (August 8, 2023) — Makenzie Gottschalk will begin her college career in a few weeks as an honor student and a pre-vet/animal science major at Texas A&M University-Kingsville. She brings with her the $40,000 GE-Reagan Scholarship, a prestigious award given to only 11 students nationwide. Gottschalk discovered the GE-Reagan Scholars program while online searching for other scholarships to help with college costs. “When I read about it, I...

KINGSVILLE — Researchers with the Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute (CKWRI) at Texas A&M University-Kingsville have been awarded two contracts from the Department of the Interior’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service totaling nearly $14 million for ocelot conservation efforts and to research possible impacts of border barrier infrastructure construction on animal movements. This work is funded by U.S. Customs and Border Protection through an Interagency Agreement...

KINGSVILLE (August 4, 2023) — Texas A&M University-Kingsville students walked the stage Friday, Aug. 4, during Summer Commencement at the Steinke Physical Education Center. There were 248 prospective graduates that received degrees at the 10 a.m. ceremony. Of the graduates, 125 received bachelor’s degrees, 115 received master’s degrees and eight received doctoral degrees. The student commencement speaker was Ella McMahan from Kingsville,...

KINGSVILLE — Texas A&M University-Kingsville has been awarded a $20 million grant by the United States Department of Agriculture to establish a collaborative, 5-year program that will help Hispanic students learn the skills needed to enter the workforce in an agricultural-related career. It is the largest single grant the university has received in its near 100-year history. The grant award comes as part of a $262.5 million dollar investment in higher...

KINGSVILLE (May 22, 2023) — Faculty at Texas A&M University-Kingsville have received another grant designed to bring kindergarten through eighth grade science teachers to the university’s campus to do research alongside university faculty and students. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), through the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), awarded $500,000 for the project entitled Promote Sustainable Agriculture Concepts in...

KINGSVILLE (April 20, 2023) — Dr. Tanner Machado, associate professor of meat science and meat processing in the animal science and veterinary technology department at Texas A&M University-Kingsville, has received a grant for nearly $1 million from the United States Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture for his project Manager Education and Agriculture Technical Skills (MEATS) Workforce. “The purpose of the...

KINGSVILLE (December 20, 2022) — Two students from the Dick and Mary Lewis Kleberg College of Agriculture and Natural Resources at Texas A&M University-Kingsville recently attended the Texas FFA Foundation Legislative LEAD program where they learned best practices to be effective in the legislative process as representatives of agriculture science teachers. Those chosen to go were Amberly Zaragoza, an animal science graduate and graduate student in plant and...

KINGSVILLE (November 7, 2022) — Dr. Mike Tewes, Regents Professor at Texas A&M University-Kingsville has been researching the endangered ocelot for more than 35 years. This week at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 9, many of his findings will go worldwide when the PBS television show Nature premiers the documentary, American Ocelot. Locally, American Ocelot will appear on KEDT-TV. In addition to public television, American Ocelot will be available to stream on...

Students from Texas A&M University-Kingsville’s Dick and Mary Lewis Kleberg College of Agriculture and Natural Resources picked up a series of honors at the Texas Section of the Society for Range Management Annual meeting in Denton, Texas. In the Plant ID competition, Team 1 took first place, with students Peter Cole, Josh Allison, Nadia Castanon and Carolina Munoz making up the team. Team 2 in placed third with Shanna Gleason, Andres Rosales, Meghan Anderson and Jack...

Texas A&M-Kingsville staff and students of the Veterinary Technology (VETT) program will celebrate Veterinary Technician Week with events throughout the week on campus. The public event on Wednesday, Oct. 19 will be at the pavilion outside the Memorial Student Union Building from noon to 2 p.m. Vet Tech students and staff will give visitors information on important veterinary preventatives and health checks for their pets. Christine Hoskinson, Assistant Director of Veterinary Technology,...

KINGSVILLE — Texas A&M University-Kingsville sits at the top of a ranking list of 2022 Best Value Agribusiness Schools in Texas according to CollegeFactual.com. College Factual is a website created to help students discover a college and career they love without debt holding them back, its website states. The ranking included only eight universities across Texas. College Factual states the rankings are determined by looking at factors such as the cost to attend the school after...

KINGSVILLE, TEXAS — Thanks to a generous gift from Bobby and Sherri Patton, the Patton Center for Deer Research (PCDR) has been established at the Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute(CKWRI). Patton, an avid outdoorsman and dedicated conservationist created the Patton Center for Deer Research that will strengthen wildlife research education at Texas A&M University-Kingsville through the Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute. Patton has previously...

KINGSVILLE (August 12, 2022) — The Texas tortoise (Gopherus berlandieri) is the smallest tortoise species in North America. As a species, the Texas tortoise is considered threatened. Research scientists and graduate students at Texas A&M University-Kingsville are working to help the small tortoises by translocating about 60 from their home in the Rio Grande Valley. To help with the project, Next Decade LNG (liquefied natural gas) from Brownsville, has presented the university...

The Department of Animal Science and Veterinary Technology at Texas A&M University-Kingsville hosted 20 high school students for a 3-day Texas 4-H Veterinary Science Camp, June 6-8 on the University’s campus. The camp was one of seven overnight camps in veterinary science that will be held across the state and in New Mexico over the summer in conjunction with Texas A&M AgriLife Extension as part of their Veterinary Science Certificate Program (VSCP). Department staff...

KINGSVILLE — The Agriculture Science department at Texas A&M University-Kingsville hosted its annual Agricultural Mechanics Project Show Tuesday, April 26 on the university campus. The show featured over 80 projects from high school students who displayed their creations along University Boulevard and presented their work to judges.“We have a variety of projects ranging from restored tractors to 30-ft. trailers. We have barbecue pits, we have animal handling systems...

Texas A&M University-Kingsville students assisted a surgical team with the Texas State Aquarium as they performed surgeries on green sea turtles Wednesday, March 9, 2022 in the Veterinary Technology facility on campus. Texas State Aquarium employees utilized a laser at the facility to treat Fibropapillomatosis (FP), a tumor-causing disease that affects some sea turtles. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the disease causes cauliflower-like...

KINGSVILLE—Texas A&M University-Kingsville students and faculty received multiple awards at the Texas Chapter of the Wildlife Society (TCTWS) state meeting held Thursday, Feb 24 through Saturday, Feb. 26 in Marble Falls. Texas A&M-Kingsville’s Plant ID teams won both first and second place in the competition. Individual Plant ID place winners include Peter Cole in first place and Shaelyn Rainey in second place. Eric Grahmann won first place in...

The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents recently designated 12 Texas A&M System faculty members and seven agency service, extension or research professionals as Regents Professors and Regents Fellows for 2020-2021. One of the 12 faculty members is Dr. Fidel Hernández, Texas A&M University-Kingsville professor in the Department of Rangeland and Wildlife Sciences and the Alfred C. Glassell Jr. Endowed Professor in Quail Research with the Caesar Kleberg...