Faculty

Duane Diefenbach

Adjunct Professor of Wildlife Ecology

404 Forest Resources Building
University Park, PA 16802

Email drd11@psu.edu
Phone 814-865-4511

Overview

Wildlife ecology, estimation of population parameters, and harvest management of game populations.

Ecology IGDP

Department of Ecosystem Science and Management

June 25, 2025

GPS collars on Pa. deer answer variety of questions on when, where deer usually move

Study lead author Danielle Begley-Miller and a colleague collecting information about the number and height of tree seedlings at a research plot. Credit: Michael Antonishak. All Rights Reserved.

October 22, 2024

Deer, seedlings and soil pH influence local forest regeneration

October 16, 2023

Deer Are Everywhere, but We Barely Know Them

June 05, 2022

Bear encounters have more than doubled this year in N.J.

May 31, 2022

Number of deer hunters is in decline, posing serious questions about future of deer management

Recreational deer hunting is the primary tool that’s available to state wildlife agencies to manage the resource, and the states have relied on revenues from the sales of hunting licenses largely to pay for wildlife conservation for more than a century. With fewer hunters, the challenge will be to find new tools to achieve management goals, according to a leading deer researcher. Credit: Joe Kosack/Pennsylvania Game Commission. All Rights Reserved.

May 10, 2022

Future of deer management clouded by coming steep decline in hunter numbers

May 05, 2022

People are seeing more black bears in Ferguson and across PA this spring. Here’s why

Penn State researchers, who continue to monitor the bobcat population on Cumberland Island National Seashore, also conducted a study comparing and contrasting the Cumberland Island bobcats to a population of bobcats on Kiawah Island off the coast of South Carolina. IMAGE: JIM JORDAN/TOWN OF KIAWAH ISLAND

February 18, 2021

Unique study of isolated bobcat population confirms accuracy of extinction model

Only about half of fawns across the white-tailed deer's range, on average, live to see their first birthday, and predators such as coyotes, bears and bobcats have been blamed for that. But this research suggests that other factors such as disease and physiology may be more influential in very young fawn mortality than previously suspected. IMAGE: TESS GINGERY/PENN STATE

January 11, 2021

Levels of stress hormone in saliva of newborn deer fawns may predict mortality

October 29, 2020

Penn State researcher defends deer antler point harvest restrictions

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