A wildlife biologist studies living organisms such as birds, mammals, reptiles, and amphibians. Wildlife biologists also study wildlife habitats, life histories, population changes, and movement.
Curiosity, skepticism, enthusiasm, and creativity are the most important traits I have to contribute to my research.
How are martens affected by the removal of living and dead plants? How can we connect healthy forests for marten habitat? Martens are small forest carnivores that live in dense, mature mountain forests. Martens are sensitive to activities that open the forest canopy or remove dead plants. Sometimes, in the hopes of reducing fires, managers remove many living and dead plants in marten habitat. We want to know the effects of these actions on martens.
We are using the world’s smallest Global Positioning System (GPS) collars for mammals. These GPS collars document marten and fisher movement patterns. GPS collars can allow for short-term tracking, because they collect data every five minutes.
In 2008, my team and I documented the first wolverine seen in California in 86 years. We were conducting remote camera surveys for martens, but captured images of a wolverine. We use the remote cameras as a tool to detect rare carnivores.
I started volunteering for the Forest Service in sixth grade. Eventually I got a job with the Forest Service. I have continued helping with surveys in the natural resource fields ever since.
