I absolutely love being outdoors, getting to study new species all the time.
Learning about how they affect the ecology of an environment is fascinating to me.
Conservation really means protecting wildlife and when I say wildlife, I'm not just referring
to animals, but I'm talking about animals, plants and their habitat
so that our future generations can enjoy the wonderful landscapes and scenery that
we can today.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Refuge System is actually the largest set of land
and water put together specifically for the protection of wildlife, including endangered species.
We have about 564 as of today, but we're constantly growing.
So I had experiences at Maine Coastal Islands National Wildlife Refuge studying puffins.
I later went to Umbagog National Wildlife Refuge in New Hampshire monitoring loon
populations and moose populations.
I had the experience of working at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge studying an endangered
species which will now be delisted soon, called the Delmarva fox squirrel.
And they're these big over-sized squirrels that seemed to be getting hit by cars a lot
because they're so slow and sluggish.
Most squirrels go tree to tree to tree.
Well these guys are so slow, that they come down the tree, go on the ground, all the way
up the tree, down the tree and again.
So but their populations are coming back now.
Everyone that's a wildlife biologist typically does it because the love being outside; they
love being outdoors.
But when you collect all that data and all that information, there's
a time when you have to be in the office to kind of analyze everything
to see what the trends are, to see what the populations are doing.
And that is very important data and very important things to do.
I would say the most important thing that kids can do to protect wildlife is to be knowledgeable.
To share that information with their classmates, to explore the outdoors, whether that be a
small patch in their backyard or a bush or at a park or at a national wildlife refuge,
like where we're at now, at Patuxent National Wildlife Refuge.
To get out and explore, make observations of your own and
do your own biology in your own backyard.