Biologist Avila-Villegas now with Desert Museum
Sergio Avila-Villegas is joining the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum staff as a conservation specialist.
Avila-Villegas holds a master’s degree in arid lands management from University of Baja California and a bachelor’s of science in biology from University of Aguascalientes.
He has worked in northwest Mexico and the southwest United States on wildlife research and conservation since 1997. As part of his work, he lived with the Tarahumara Indians in the Copper Canyon of Chihuahua.
As a biologist in Mexico and the U.S., he studied pumas, cactus-ferruginous pygmy owls, California sea lions, Santa Catalina rattlesnakes, river otters, jaguars and ocelots. Avila-Villegas recently completed a decade at the Sky Island Alliance, initiating its work in northern Mexico.
At the Desert Museum, “he will continue cross-border conservation collaborations, building on his work on conserving habitat for big cats (bobcat, ocelot, mountain lion and jaguar) and control of invasive species (primarily buffelgrass),” the museum said in a news release. “He will also be involved in exhibit planning, research mentoring for teens and other citizen scientists and development of new public programs.”
