Research/Field Work History
May 2015 to Sept 2015
USGS – Minnesota, USA
Wolf Field Tech
Primary responsibilities were to be part of a four person team that set, check and maintained trap lines 10 to 30 traps long over 1 to 10 miles. Did daily trap checks and would process any wolves and by catches. Processing for all animals included chemically immobilizing the animal, removing it from the trap, documenting general condition and any injuries, and giving it a reversal. For wolves we also collected blood and hair samples, body measurements (weight, length, teeth etc), aged the animal, and fitted with either a radio or GPS collar. Tuned, repaired and maintained the foot hold traps. Secondary responsibilities included locating deer/wolf mortality via telemetry and performing necropsies to figure out cause of death. Set up trail cameras to check on wolf pack numbers and scout new trapping locations. We were in charge of updating the location maps in the office with the newest flight data.
Sept 2014 to Oct 2014
Global Classroom – Namibia, Africa
Research Intern
Two main projects were worked on over the month. First was the cheetah monitoring project. We had three cheetahs in the study area that we needed to monitor daily to insure they were still in the refuge. Once located we checked to see if they had a kill, if so we check to ID the kill, its gender, age and other stats if known. We also took noninvasive (visual observation only) exams of the cheetahs to make sure they were in general good health. Second we observed a pack of African wild dogs 16 members strong. From this captive group we mapped out the ranks of the pack members and choose four members to be removed to create a new pack in the free range refuge. By daily observations of body posturing and feeding time behavior we could figure out the ranks and choose the four with the least disturbance to the existing pack.
March 2014 to July 2014
The Prusten Project
Data Analyzer
Used Raven sound analyzing software to identify and isolate tiger calls. Audio files were provided via Dropbox and I worked remotely from the project via email. Once I had sorted through the roughly 12 hours of audio I would send back the isolated samples for further analysis by the researchers.
July 2013
EarthWatch – Madagascar, Africa
Volunteer
Helped set up and maintain a grid work of box traps for Fossa trapping. Would help with processing (blood collections, body measurements, gender check and teeth check) and monitoring (temperatures, heart rate and respiration) of Fossa while they were immobilized. Also helped in road kill study. We counted and id different roadkill animals to check consecrations around the areas that did have speed bumps and did not have speed bumps over a 15km stretch of highway. Helped with the promotion and manufacturing of “Rocket Stoves” a stove that runs off of rice hulls rather than firewood as deforestation is a major issue.
June 2005 to Sept 2006
UC San Diego – California, USA
Rattle Snake Tech
Was responsible for locating and safely capturing local rattlesnakes for a venom study. I would identify the snake as we only wanted red diamond backs and safely securing them for transport back to the research facility. Would later in the week release them back in the location in which I found them. Worked in pairs for safety.
Animal Care and Handling History
May 2016 to current
San Diego Zoo Safari Park - California, USA
Wildlife Care Specialist
Feb 2011 to May 2015
California Wolf Center
Curator
Oversaw the daily care, medication and observation of the resident wolves. Worked closely with the Director of Operations and the veterinarian/Executive Director on the ongoing care and future plans for the animals and their exhibits. Was responsible for arranging captures of wolves for either veterinary care or transfer to other facilities, for minor veterinarian care (wound care or injections) I was the one performing those actions with the consent of the veterinarian. Kept a log on the amount of food on hand and arranged for delivery or pick up of food as needed making sure to keep a back stock of one month on hand. Arranged transfers of wolves to other facilities including transport, permits and health documentation. Renewed and applied for any required permits for operations (USDS, CAFW, CDPH). Did recording of all wolf behavior and record keeping of wolf log. Created the emergency response protocol and overhauled the animal care protocol to be in line with new state requirements. Did repairs to anything broken at the facility and maintained all vehicles, animal exhibits, and all other structures on site. Did the monthly financial bookkeeping. Trained new staff, volunteers and interns in animal care and facility maintenance.
Sept 2010 to Feb 2011
California Wolf Center
Conversation Associate
Had two main areas of focus, first was education. Responsible for creating, updating and presenting wolf education tours for the general public, private groups, school groups and specialty groups (zookeepers, vet students, etc.). Trained interns on giving power point presentations and outside exhibit tours. Helped with basic administrative task: answering phones, email and database input. Second area of focus was onsite care taking. Did observation and animal care under the supervision and direction of the Curator and Director of Operations.
Feb 2010 to Sept 2010
Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge
Animal Care Intern
Responsible for the care of 100 exotic animals: big cats (lions, tigers, leopards and mountain lions) small exotic cats, bears and hoof stock. Performed daily enclosure cleaning, animal observations and medicating animals as needed. Prepared raw meat for the large cats and other diets for the rest of the collection; would feed all animals at their daily feeding time. Would prepare enrichment for the animals and help with keeping the cat’s exercised with daily activity. Lead group tours of 10 to 100 people teaching them about the exotic pet trade, responsible pet ownership and the ongoing conservation struggle of the rescued cats wild relatives. Helped with upkeep of the grounds and did enclosure brush clearing and repairs.
June 2009 to Feb 2010
California Wolf Center
Intern
Performed jobs related to tour logistics like checking guest in, helping with escorts up our road, answering questions guest had and running the gift shop. Lead tours for all groups and helped with tour assignments. Did facility maintenance work like road repairs, brush clearing, wood chopping and minor fence repairs. Performed animal care jobs like weighing out the animal food, feeding the wolves, cleaning the enclosures and doing animal health observations.
July 2009 to Oct 2009
Banfield Pet Hospital
Veterinary Technician
Gave general exams on companion animals (cats, dogs and small mammals) and went over with clients any questions and concerns they had on the visit. Performed blood draws, gave vaccinations, ran blood work, used and developed x-rays and helped with general animal restraint. Would work in an electronic data base to handle record keeping. Performed basic janitorial and sanitation protocols like laundry and kennel cleaning.
June 2008 to Sept 2008
UC Davis Veterinary Hospital
Student Assistant IV – Veterinary night nurse
Helped in the recovery of post-surgery dogs and cats, focusing on the neurological ward. Cleaned the kennels and kept up with the high standard of sanitation in the different wards. Helped with intake of overnight emergencies. Worked in the county quarantine set up in the hospital and followed the sanitations and biohazard protocols. Helped with assisting the veterinarian and vet students as needed.
Jan 2007 to June 2007
UC Davis Cole Facility
Student Assistant II – Slaughter facility assistant
Worked at a slaughter research facility. Primary job was to make sure the facility met the USDA and FDA human health standards for meat quality. Cleaned the kill floor, holding pens, cutting room and cold storage. Helped with processing of beef, goat, lamb and pork including slaughter and specialty cuts and butcher. Trained students and new staff on the safety of the facility and on quality control.
Education
University of California, Davis – Bachelors of Science Animal Science – 2009
Professional Trainings
Wildlife Handling and Chemical Immobilization Training
Certificate of training
Three day course taught by Dr. Mark Johnson at the California Wolf Center. Two day in class lecture and labs on drug safety, remote drug delivery systems, trapping, drug effects and monitoring, basic physical restraints and emergency response. Third day spent outside doing exams on the resident wolves, was able to work on one chemically immobilized wolf and then three restrained but awake wolves. Skills learned in the third day were blood draws, y-pole restraint, syringe poling, muzzling and hobbling, taking TPRs (temperature, pulse and respiration) and data recording.
Wilderness First Aid
Certification
Weekend course to teach first aid for remote locations. This is a course that builds of the basic First Aid and CPR class.
Emerging Wildlife Conservation Leaders
Student
A program designed to give leadership to the up and coming conservation leaders. Over the course of two years students attend two intensive five day leadership workshops. We also work in and team with a partner organization on a conservation project. Our project was Cameras 4 Conservation, a program that gets cameras donated from those no longer using them and loan them out to research projects focused on understudied and underfunded species, with the focus being on Clouded Leopard. From the project we learn about grant writing, building relationships with partners, donors and funders as well as the basic admin and time management skills needed to start and see through a project from the ground up.
Skills
May 2015 to Sept 2015
USGS – Minnesota, USA
Wolf Field Tech
Primary responsibilities were to be part of a four person team that set, check and maintained trap lines 10 to 30 traps long over 1 to 10 miles. Did daily trap checks and would process any wolves and by catches. Processing for all animals included chemically immobilizing the animal, removing it from the trap, documenting general condition and any injuries, and giving it a reversal. For wolves we also collected blood and hair samples, body measurements (weight, length, teeth etc), aged the animal, and fitted with either a radio or GPS collar. Tuned, repaired and maintained the foot hold traps. Secondary responsibilities included locating deer/wolf mortality via telemetry and performing necropsies to figure out cause of death. Set up trail cameras to check on wolf pack numbers and scout new trapping locations. We were in charge of updating the location maps in the office with the newest flight data.
Sept 2014 to Oct 2014
Global Classroom – Namibia, Africa
Research Intern
Two main projects were worked on over the month. First was the cheetah monitoring project. We had three cheetahs in the study area that we needed to monitor daily to insure they were still in the refuge. Once located we checked to see if they had a kill, if so we check to ID the kill, its gender, age and other stats if known. We also took noninvasive (visual observation only) exams of the cheetahs to make sure they were in general good health. Second we observed a pack of African wild dogs 16 members strong. From this captive group we mapped out the ranks of the pack members and choose four members to be removed to create a new pack in the free range refuge. By daily observations of body posturing and feeding time behavior we could figure out the ranks and choose the four with the least disturbance to the existing pack.
March 2014 to July 2014
The Prusten Project
Data Analyzer
Used Raven sound analyzing software to identify and isolate tiger calls. Audio files were provided via Dropbox and I worked remotely from the project via email. Once I had sorted through the roughly 12 hours of audio I would send back the isolated samples for further analysis by the researchers.
July 2013
EarthWatch – Madagascar, Africa
Volunteer
Helped set up and maintain a grid work of box traps for Fossa trapping. Would help with processing (blood collections, body measurements, gender check and teeth check) and monitoring (temperatures, heart rate and respiration) of Fossa while they were immobilized. Also helped in road kill study. We counted and id different roadkill animals to check consecrations around the areas that did have speed bumps and did not have speed bumps over a 15km stretch of highway. Helped with the promotion and manufacturing of “Rocket Stoves” a stove that runs off of rice hulls rather than firewood as deforestation is a major issue.
June 2005 to Sept 2006
UC San Diego – California, USA
Rattle Snake Tech
Was responsible for locating and safely capturing local rattlesnakes for a venom study. I would identify the snake as we only wanted red diamond backs and safely securing them for transport back to the research facility. Would later in the week release them back in the location in which I found them. Worked in pairs for safety.
Animal Care and Handling History
May 2016 to current
San Diego Zoo Safari Park - California, USA
Wildlife Care Specialist
Feb 2011 to May 2015
California Wolf Center
Curator
Oversaw the daily care, medication and observation of the resident wolves. Worked closely with the Director of Operations and the veterinarian/Executive Director on the ongoing care and future plans for the animals and their exhibits. Was responsible for arranging captures of wolves for either veterinary care or transfer to other facilities, for minor veterinarian care (wound care or injections) I was the one performing those actions with the consent of the veterinarian. Kept a log on the amount of food on hand and arranged for delivery or pick up of food as needed making sure to keep a back stock of one month on hand. Arranged transfers of wolves to other facilities including transport, permits and health documentation. Renewed and applied for any required permits for operations (USDS, CAFW, CDPH). Did recording of all wolf behavior and record keeping of wolf log. Created the emergency response protocol and overhauled the animal care protocol to be in line with new state requirements. Did repairs to anything broken at the facility and maintained all vehicles, animal exhibits, and all other structures on site. Did the monthly financial bookkeeping. Trained new staff, volunteers and interns in animal care and facility maintenance.
Sept 2010 to Feb 2011
California Wolf Center
Conversation Associate
Had two main areas of focus, first was education. Responsible for creating, updating and presenting wolf education tours for the general public, private groups, school groups and specialty groups (zookeepers, vet students, etc.). Trained interns on giving power point presentations and outside exhibit tours. Helped with basic administrative task: answering phones, email and database input. Second area of focus was onsite care taking. Did observation and animal care under the supervision and direction of the Curator and Director of Operations.
Feb 2010 to Sept 2010
Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge
Animal Care Intern
Responsible for the care of 100 exotic animals: big cats (lions, tigers, leopards and mountain lions) small exotic cats, bears and hoof stock. Performed daily enclosure cleaning, animal observations and medicating animals as needed. Prepared raw meat for the large cats and other diets for the rest of the collection; would feed all animals at their daily feeding time. Would prepare enrichment for the animals and help with keeping the cat’s exercised with daily activity. Lead group tours of 10 to 100 people teaching them about the exotic pet trade, responsible pet ownership and the ongoing conservation struggle of the rescued cats wild relatives. Helped with upkeep of the grounds and did enclosure brush clearing and repairs.
June 2009 to Feb 2010
California Wolf Center
Intern
Performed jobs related to tour logistics like checking guest in, helping with escorts up our road, answering questions guest had and running the gift shop. Lead tours for all groups and helped with tour assignments. Did facility maintenance work like road repairs, brush clearing, wood chopping and minor fence repairs. Performed animal care jobs like weighing out the animal food, feeding the wolves, cleaning the enclosures and doing animal health observations.
July 2009 to Oct 2009
Banfield Pet Hospital
Veterinary Technician
Gave general exams on companion animals (cats, dogs and small mammals) and went over with clients any questions and concerns they had on the visit. Performed blood draws, gave vaccinations, ran blood work, used and developed x-rays and helped with general animal restraint. Would work in an electronic data base to handle record keeping. Performed basic janitorial and sanitation protocols like laundry and kennel cleaning.
June 2008 to Sept 2008
UC Davis Veterinary Hospital
Student Assistant IV – Veterinary night nurse
Helped in the recovery of post-surgery dogs and cats, focusing on the neurological ward. Cleaned the kennels and kept up with the high standard of sanitation in the different wards. Helped with intake of overnight emergencies. Worked in the county quarantine set up in the hospital and followed the sanitations and biohazard protocols. Helped with assisting the veterinarian and vet students as needed.
Jan 2007 to June 2007
UC Davis Cole Facility
Student Assistant II – Slaughter facility assistant
Worked at a slaughter research facility. Primary job was to make sure the facility met the USDA and FDA human health standards for meat quality. Cleaned the kill floor, holding pens, cutting room and cold storage. Helped with processing of beef, goat, lamb and pork including slaughter and specialty cuts and butcher. Trained students and new staff on the safety of the facility and on quality control.
Education
University of California, Davis – Bachelors of Science Animal Science – 2009
- Dual emphasis on lab animals and beef production
- Student Teaching Assistant for Comparative Animal Nutrition Lab. Helped set up the animal studies.
- Extensive lab work: PCR, animal dissections, animal observations, animal restraint and handling, hormone monitoring.
- Upper level course work in: Core Science Classes, Animal Reproduction, Animal Nutrition, Genetics, Stats.
Professional Trainings
Wildlife Handling and Chemical Immobilization Training
Certificate of training
Three day course taught by Dr. Mark Johnson at the California Wolf Center. Two day in class lecture and labs on drug safety, remote drug delivery systems, trapping, drug effects and monitoring, basic physical restraints and emergency response. Third day spent outside doing exams on the resident wolves, was able to work on one chemically immobilized wolf and then three restrained but awake wolves. Skills learned in the third day were blood draws, y-pole restraint, syringe poling, muzzling and hobbling, taking TPRs (temperature, pulse and respiration) and data recording.
Wilderness First Aid
Certification
Weekend course to teach first aid for remote locations. This is a course that builds of the basic First Aid and CPR class.
Emerging Wildlife Conservation Leaders
Student
A program designed to give leadership to the up and coming conservation leaders. Over the course of two years students attend two intensive five day leadership workshops. We also work in and team with a partner organization on a conservation project. Our project was Cameras 4 Conservation, a program that gets cameras donated from those no longer using them and loan them out to research projects focused on understudied and underfunded species, with the focus being on Clouded Leopard. From the project we learn about grant writing, building relationships with partners, donors and funders as well as the basic admin and time management skills needed to start and see through a project from the ground up.
Skills
- Driving – Trained to drive, maintain, operate and do basic repairs to: tractors, ATV, forklifts, 4x4 and manual vehicles. Drove professionally for Enterprise Rent-A-Car with a clean record.
- Public Speaking – Energetic and engaging speaker, comfortable with small intimate groups to large crowds and auditoriums. Great in both a causal lay back setting, on camera or in a formal environment.
- Computer Skills – Prolific skills in basic Microsoft Suites. Can also fix and repair hardware issues with computers.
- Fire Arms – Skilled marksman with rifles and shotguns. Comfortable with the use of small hand guns as well.
- Facility Maintenance – Basic small repairs in plumbing, electrical or physical structure.
- Customer Service – Worked over three years in retail and working with clients at vet clinics.
- Retail/Inventory Ordering – Can keep track of stock, and back stocks and set up systems to make sure orders are placed on time.