CURRENT MISSION

Adventuring

ABOUT ME

I am currently adventuring with a friend! I am traveling (after doing spotted owl surveys for the Forest Service in Quincy, California and then working on an organic farm in Santa Cruz, CA) back home to Kentucky for the winter.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

i am new to couchsurfing and I am looking forward to this experience!

Interests

Wildlife, Reading, Dancing, Crocheting, Hiking, Swimming, Friends, New People, Nature, etc.

• animals
• wildlife
• beauty
• dancing
• dining
• reading
• traveling
• hiking
• swimming
• biology

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

One summer I worked as a Student Conservation Association intern, collecting data on forest thinning practices and small mammal abundance for a U.S. Forest Service study at the Pacific Southwest Research Station, in the Lake Tahoe region. On my first day of work I encountered a bear for the first time in my life. This was a beautiful animal and an exciting moment for me. However, the bear then decided to stalk me all morning, coming as near as about 10 meters or closer, and tearing down and smashing all the peanut-butter baited traps I had just set up. Having arrived later than most of the other technicians due to flight delays, I had not been given any safety lectures or time to prepare for my first day on the job. I yelled and banged my hammer against traps but this bear was undeterred. It had learned that humans were not a threat and that they carried food. Finally, after several hours of instinctual fear of the persistent bear following me, it was time to move on to the next study site and leave the curious bear behind. I worked 15 continuous hours that day; my T-shirt-clad self was rained and hailed upon; I had no food for myself to eat. Yet, I could not believe how fortunate I was to spend my summer after graduation working in the forests. I had found in this encounter a renewed commitment to the study of wildlife that was as undaunted as my large morning stalker had been. I spent the rest of the summer discovering things about small mammals, the forest, and myself that I had never before realized. I found an easy endurance that I did not know I possessed, even enjoying the many hardships of field work. I was immensely rewarded by the beauty of the woods and the long-term benefits that the collected data may provide. Luckily, I never had to encounter another bear at such close range again. While I acquired a tendency to look for bears at the snap of a twig, I also gained a deeper respect for nature that day and an understanding that my life was meant for wildlife research and conservation biology.