A wildlife biologist studies wildlife populations, communities, and their habitats.
Love of the outdoors (and for me a fascination with wildlife).
A strong curiosity about wildlife behavior—what they eat, what habitats they live in, and how they affect each other. I believe I am a keen observer of wildlife.
Can coyotes affect deer populations?
We use night vision equipment (goggles and scopes) to be able to see and capture deer at night using rocket nets and tranquilizer guns. We also use thermal imaging cameras, which detect body heat, to find newborn deer fawns so we can put radio collars on them.
We discovered the reason for recent declines in the numbers of deer in some parts of the Southeast (such as parts of South Carolina). Predation by coyotes, which are not native to the southeastern U.S., is so extensive in some places that not enough fawns are surviving to adulthood.
When I was about 12 or 13, I realized I probably wasn’t going to make it as a professional baseball player. A friend of my father’s was a wildlife biologist, and I was enthralled by his stories, so I decided that sounded like the job for me.
