Warren Mark Pulich

A founding professor of the University of Dallas Biology Department, Pulich worked earlier for the Arizona Game and Fish Commission and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. He had particular interest in ornithology and ecology, training generations of students in field methods, in compiling bird records, in teaching youth classes at the Fort Worth Science Museum, in salvaging birds from collisions, and in leading coastal trips to view whooping cranes. Insights from his wide-ranging bird observations can be gained from Pulich’s 439-page volume, The Birds of North Central Texas (1988).

He is remembered for extensive studies on the golden-cheeked warbler. Based on surveys in more than 90 Texas counties from 1962 to 1974, Pulich helped establish a key understanding of the warbler’s range, life history, and habitat requirements, especially its reliance on mature, intact Ashe juniper-oak woodlands. His research, much of it documented in The Golden-cheeked Warbler (1976), was critical to the warbler’s 1990 listing as an endangered species and in the planning for its recovery.