Practicing Conservation Biology in a Country in Crisis
I always knew I wanted to be a biologist. The first time I remember being interested in nature, I was about seven years old. I was watching a line of ants walking in my backyard and wondering what they could be saying to each other. I always had good grades so getting into the Biology school at my local university wasn’t hard. I fell even more in love with it during my first field trip.
We had to get up at the break of dawn and didn’t go to bed until after midnight, but being on the beach, surveying the seabed, counting, and trying to identify each organism we came across was exhilarating.
I loved fieldwork and studying animals and their relationship with their environment, so I studied ecology and specialized in conservation biology. I wanted to work towards preserving wildlife and natural ecosystems.
Since then, I have carried out fieldwork in different environments in 4 different countries, and I can’t say I love it any less. The whispers of the forest accompany me to this day, and I still marvel when I see the birds, bats, and lizards that come to my house every day, but I no longer work long hours in remote areas full of natural magic and adventure.
It was early 2013 when I came back from England to Venezuela. I had spent two years there on a post-study work visa, which…
