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Wisconsin Center for Wildlife

Wildlife Health Lab
A large image of a ferret.

Understanding Wildlife Health

Wisconsin Center for Wildlife Fellow Shelli Dubay, Ph.D., is working to understand why and how certain wildlife species are affected by disease throughout their ranges in the United States. Dubay’s current research focuses on the endangered black-footed ferret. She is the Gerald and Helen Stephens professor of wildlife.

Current Projects

Dubay advises two research projects for the Student Chapter of The Wildlife Society.
Students capture, ear-tag, and attempt to re-capture gray squirrels in Schmeeckle Reserve

Gray Squirrel Project

Students capture, ear-tag, and attempt to re-capture gray squirrels in Schmeeckle Reserve to estimate the population size of gray squirrels in Schmeeckle, and to determine yearly squirrel survival rates. 

A grey flying squirrel

Flying Squirrel Project

This student-led project focuses on estimating population size and trap success of the southern flying squirrels in Schmeeckle Reserve at UW-Stevens Point. The students capture flying squirrels, and tag them with ear tags to identify them upon recapture. 

Let’s Connect!

Shelli Dubay earned her Ph.D. in zoology and physiology at the University of Wyoming in 2000. She joined UW–Stevens Point in 2005 after working for the Arizona Game and Fish Department and the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. Her research focuses primarily on wildlife health, but she has also studied red-shouldered hawk nest-site selection and whooping crane migration and nest success. Her current students are studying endangered black-footed ferrets in collaboration with co-adviser Travis Livieri, Ph.D., a UW–Stevens Point alumnus and director of Prairie Wildlife Research.
Shelli Dubay

Shelli Dubay

  • Professor of Wildlife
  • Gerald and Helen Stephens Endowed Professor
  • Faculty Adviser for the Wildlife Society Gray and Flying Squirrel Projects
715-346-4178
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Meet Our Outstanding Students!

Students at the Wisconsin Center for Wildlife are studying disease ecology in prairie ecosystems, focusing on black-footed ferrets, prairie dogs and their parasites. Their research includes investigating how bacterial diseases such as tularemia affect ferrets, how fleas and ticks move between animals and spread disease, and how quickly new parasites recolonize prairie dog populations after management efforts. By combining fieldwork, monitoring and innovative tracking techniques, these students aim to improve understanding of disease transmission in grassland ecosystems and inform conservation and management strategies for prairie wildlife.
Student posing with a black footed ferret.

Maddie Hartlaub

Graduate Student

Maddie is studying the ecology of tularemia, a bacterial disease, in black-footed ferrets within the prairie dog burrow ecosystem of Conata Basin/Badlands National Park, South Dakota. Because prairie dogs — the ferrets’ primary prey — are vulnerable to multiple threats, including tularemia, her research focuses on understanding how this disease spreads through the prairie. Maddie analyzes serum samples from black-footed ferrets to determine tularemia prevalence over time and identify the factors influencing their exposure to the bacteria, providing insights that can help guide conservation and management strategies for ferrets and their prairie habitat.
Student posing outside with a small rodent.

Jason Fly

Graduate Student

The plague poses a serious threat to grassland animals, including prairie dogs and endangered black-footed ferrets. While fleas are known to spread the disease, how they move between animals is not fully understood. Jason Fly’s research uses a fluorescent dye, rhodamine B, to track flea movement: prairie dogs ingest the dye, which passes to fleas that feed on them. Researchers then collect fleas from dyed and undyed prairie dogs in Badlands National Park and examine them under a microscope. Finding dyed fleas on undyed animals helps confirm how fleas travel between hosts, improving understanding of disease transmission.
Student poses with a prairie dog.

Holly Gilchrist

Undergraduate

Because plague is carried by fleas, land managers work to control the disease by reducing flea populations. The primary management strategy involves using poisons that specifically target fleas. After a group of prairie dogs has all its fleas removed through these treatments, researchers want to know how long it takes for new fleas to return. My research focuses on flea reloading — the time it takes for new fleas to recolonize prairie dogs after their initial flea load has been eliminated.
Male student with a black cap poses happily with a small rodent.

Zack Wilson

Undergraduate

Zach Wilson studied tularemia parasite vectors as an undergraduate under Shelli Dubay. He investigated how specific tick species could serve as bridging vectors for tularemia in grassland ecosystems and worked to identify relationships between small mammal densities, prairie dog burrow densities and the abundance of ticks on host species. Wilson graduated in May 2025 and now works at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in New York.

A Special Thanks

 
The Gerald and Helen Stephens Professorship in Wildlife provides funding for research support, professional travel, student collaborations, mentorship activities, and enhancing professor compensation for the endowed professor. This endowment, established by Gerald and Helen Stephens, embodies their commitment to honoring the memory of their son, Douglas R. Stephens, a UW-Stevens Point wildlife alumni.