The Caesar Kleberg Fellowship Endowment in Wildlife Conservation was established by the Caesar Kleberg Foundation for Wildlife Conservation in 1988. The purpose of this Fellowship is to provide support to graduate students of the highest caliber who would study and do research in Wildlife Management in Texas.

Caesar Kleberg, rancher and wildlife promoter, son of Mathilda (Eckhart) and Rudolph Kleberg, was born on September 20, 1873, at Cuero, Texas. Rudolph Kleberg served in Congress from 1897 to 1903. Upon graduation from the Cuero schools and after attending St. Edwards University in Austin, "Mr. Caesar" went to Washington, D. C., where he was employed as his father's congressional secretary. He moved to the King Ranch in 1900 to begin work for Henrietta King and was chief assistant to his uncle, Robert J. Kleberg. Caesar first lived and worked on the Santa Gertrudis Division, but he made his mark during his thirty-year tenure as foreman of Norias, forty miles south of Kingsville.

Mr. Kleberg oversaw the restoration of the white-tailed deer, the turkey, and bobwhite quail to rangeland almost completely denuded of them. In 1924 he released Nilgai antelope from southern Asia on the Texas range, the first such release in the western hemisphere. The Nilgai have multiplied to such numbers that they are commercially harvested at Norias as a gourmet wild game meat. Kleberg, who never married, died at the Santa Gertrudis Division of the King Ranch on April 14, 1946. In his will he established the Caesar Kleberg Foundation for Wildlife Conservation, endowing a fund to support wildlife research and conservation around the world.

Specific research topics of interest include: big game, upland game, and ecology and management of waterfowl, as well as the management of game habitat.

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Contact

Alex Yack
Alex.Yack@ttu.edu
Senior Director of Development
806.742.2802

Matt Williams
matt.williams@ttu.edu
Director of Development
806.742.2802

Shelbey Havens
shelbey.havens@ttu.edu
Assistant Director of Development
806.834.1108