C.C. "Charlie" Winn Endowed Chair for Quail Research

Research Scientist and Professor

Lenny Brennan is a Professor in the Department of Animal, Rangeland and Wildlife Sciences at Texas A&M University – Kingsville. He holds the C.C. Winn Endowed Chair in the Richard M. Kleberg Jr. Center for Quail Research. A native of Connecticut, and graduate of Wheeler High School in North Stonington (1975) he developed a deep appreciation of the outdoors and ecology as a young boy when he lived, camped and hiked in various parts of New England.  Lenny graduated from The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington (1981) with a B.S. in Environmental Studies, Humboldt State University in Arcata, California (1984) with a M.S. in Natural Resources-Wildlife Management, and from The University of California-Berkeley (1989) with a Ph.D. in Wildland Resource Sciences -Wildlife Ecology where he was also a Regents’ Fellow.

 
Lenny became a Research Scientist in the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries at Mississippi State University in 1989, and then moved on to become Director of Research at Tall Timbers Research Station in Tallahassee, Florida in 1993. During 2001 he moved to South Texas to assume his current position at the Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute. Lenny’s primary research interests pertain to habitat and population ecology of wild quail in Texas and developing a scientific basis for their management and conservation. He is conducting specific research projects on impacts of invasive exotic grasses, various brush management and grassland habitat restoration techniques, relationships between habitat structure and quail population productivity, understanding the predator context in which quail nest in South Texas, as well as the genetic ecology of bobwhites across the Texas landscape and their geographic range.

 
The author or coauthor of over 130 scientific articles, and more than 90 extension publications, Lenny has published the results of his research projects in various international journals such as Oecolgia, Giber-Faune Sauvage, The Condor, The Auk, Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, Wildlife Society Bulletin and The Journal of Wildlife Management. He is the author of the Northern Bobwhite Species Account in the acclaimed Birds of North America series, and he has edited four books, including Texas Quails: Ecology and Management, published by Texas A&M University Press in 2007.  Texas Quails received Outstanding Wildlife Publication Awards from The Wildlife Society, The Texas Section of The Society for Range Management, and The Texas Chapter of the Wildlife Society. He has received three other Outstanding Wildlife Publication Awards from The Texas Chapter of The Wildlife Society, two for scientific papers and one for electronic media. Lenny is coauthor of the recent book Texas Bobwhites: A Guide to their Foods and Habitat Management, 2010, University of Texas Press. His latest edited book, Wildlife Science: Connecting Research with Management, from CRC Press, will appear in 2012.  Lenny and his graduate students have presented more than 230 papers at state, national and international scientific conferences, and he has made more than 100 presentations to extension audiences.

During 2001-2002, Lenny served as Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of Wildlife Management, and has also served terms as Associate Editor for The Journal of Wildlife Management, Wildlife Society Bulletin, and Consulting Editor for Wildlife Monographs.  Lenny received the Senior Faculty Distinguished Teaching Award in the College of Agriculture, Human Sciences and Natural Resources in 2005 and the Senior Faculty Distinguished Research Award in 2006. He is currently Editor-in-Chief of Wildlife Society Bulletin, an international online journal dedicated to integrating wildlife science with management.