Naturalist Staff at Spring Creek Ranch
Dr. Dave Augeri – Director of Naturalist Programs & Tours
Dr. Davidé (“Dave”) Augeri has been a wildlife biologist, naturalist, and professional guide for four decades in the Greater Yellowstone and Rocky Mountain regions as well as throughout North America and around the world, including as a National Geographic Society Explorer and Expeditions Expert.
His scientific and conservation work encompass a diversity of rare, threatened, and endangered species and ecosystems. In the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and North America this includes grizzly bears, wolves, black bears, mountain lions, polar bears, coyotes, fox, elk, moose, deer, other species, and their critical habitats. Internationally, his work has focused on elephants, tigers, clouded leopards and other wild cats, great apes and various primates, rhinoceros, sun bears, Asiatic black bears and other bear species, wolves, whales, dolphins, sharks, sea turtles and other marine species, giant tortoises, various bird species, and more from the Tropics to the Arctic.
Dr. Dave holds a Ph.D. in wildlife ecology, biodiversity, and conservation biology from the University of Cambridge; a M.Sc. in ecology and forest sciences from Colorado State University; a M.A. in nonprofit organization leadership and management from Johns Hopkins University; and a B.A. in biology and geology from Colby College. He is an Associate Professor of Wildlife and Conservation Biology, a senior advisor to various governments and international organizations, and a senior expert and member of several global authorities, such as the IUCN Species Survival Commission (including the SSC Bear Specialist Group), the World Commission on Protected Areas, the Climate Action Commission, and the World Heritage Panel, among others.
Dr. Dave is also the Founder and Chair of WISE – World Institute for Society and the Environment based in Jackson, Wyoming (www.wise-world.org), the Founder, Director, and Principal Conservation Biologist for Biodiversity Unlimited Research and Consulting Group also based in Jackson, Wyoming (www.biodiversityunlimited.com), and Research Associate with the Craighead Institute, based in Moose, Wyoming and Bozeman, Montana (www.craigheadresearch.org). He is also an Associate Editor for the British Ecological Society’s scientific journals as well as a published photographer and writer, with a forthcoming book in 2026 titled “Revolutionizing Our Relationship With The Earth”.
