ROB K. BURTON, PH.D.
Get to Know More About Our Wildlife Specialist
ROB K. BURTON, PH.D.
Rob has worked with wildlife for over 30 years. His interests have included a broad diversity of species such as California legless lizard and lowland leopard frog, California least tern and western snowy plover, giant kangaroo rat and American badger, as well as northern fur seal, southern sea otter, and several species of whales. Rob’s areas of expertise include vertebrate ecology, quantitative ecology, and geospatial analysis. Recently, Rob has combined these skills in new ways, working with the Bureau of Land Management to quantify the efficacy of managed grazing to benefit native perennial bunchgrass communities.
Rob started working as an ecological consultant in the late 1980s,
conducting wildlife surveys while working towards a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Studies at UC Santa Cruz. He completed a master’s degree at San Jose State University where he focused on developing and implementing strategies for protecting nesting western snowy plovers and California least terns at Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area, while maintaining public access to the park.
He earned a Ph.D. in Earth Sciences at UC Santa Cruz, where he conducted research into the past distributions of marine mammals along the California coast through analyses of stable isotope compositions of bones from marine mammals that were hunted by humans 2000 years ago.
Rob’s personal interests don’t stray far from his professional interests. On his time off, he is often somewhere out in the desert or photographing wolves and bears in Yellowstone.