What We’re Reading- Sept 15, 2017

If You Sing It, They Will Come (and Occupy New Habitat Patches) One of the biggest threats to species are small isolated habitat patches, where species can be extirpated (i.e. go locally extinct) from any patch.  The endangered Kirkland’s warbler (Setophaga kirtlandii) lives in these types of patchy pine forests near the Great Lakes in…

There’s no such thing as “boring” data in citizen science

As a child I was hooked on wildlife documentaries (I still am…) and from these I gleaned that the career highlight of any self-respecting botanist or zoologist was to discover a new species. For a while that was my goal too, but then I became sidetracked by questions about genetics and evolution and conservation. Fast…

What We’re Reading: Jan 22, 2016

“Jade of the Sea” Oh come on! Just as the world begins to apply pressure to elephant poachers and ivory consumers in an attempt to decrease the killing, trinket carvers are turning to another threatened species for raw materials, the giant clam (Tridacna gigas). The linked article has a lot of great information, everything to…

Expedition Mt. Kenya: The Hike to the Top

It’s no secret I like fancy things, and even though I am a wildlife biologist, I have actually little experience camping. When I was little, my family would “camp” overnight at Alleghany State Park in hotels and my friend even bought me a make-up bag with “I love not camping” written on it for my…

Sampling roadkill for DNA

I know a lot of biologists who have lists related to their work: lists of birds they have seen, lists of journals they want to publish in, lists of top wildlife spectacles they want to see, lists of species they have studied, lists of their favourite fieldwork sites. I too have a few lists, and…

So you want to be a field technician (or how to get a field job)

If your college is anything like mine, the career center could give you all sorts of advice on how to land an office job or apply to a pre-professional program. But what if you’re an aspiring ecologist looking for a field research job*? What if you want your office to be a forest, savannah, river,…

Bear Research in Pictures

Today, an American black bear (Ursus americanus) roamed the campus of the National Institute of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, MD. The Maryland Natural Resources Police tranquilized and moved the bear back to the forest, but before that happened NIH started a Twitter account (@NIH_Bear) to simultaneously snark at NIH funding policy and slip some bear…

SEPARC Meeting 2014: Importance of Thorough Field Work and Knowing your Species…but I’m a Population Geneticist…

So what’s worth driving through Snowmageddon 2014 to a lake resort park in Kentucky? Hanging out with a bunch of fellow herp (reptile and amphibians) lovers on Valentine’s Day and talking about how to conserve these charismatic creatures! That’s what I did this weekend at the annual Southeast Partners in Amphibian and Reptile Conservation (SEPARC)…