Rick is a retired biologist, following a diverse 35 year career with BLM, FWS, and USFS as a range specialist, fish and wildlife biologist and wildlife refuge manager in California, Utah, Idaho, Hawaii, Washington and Oregon. He spent most of the 1990s working at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge as a wildlife biologist where he developed a passion for controlling common carp. His carp kill list is about 150,000 and still growing, working as a volunteer for Malheur Refuge and Malheur National Forest. Much of his time now is spent travelling with his wife on natural history trips to remote parts of the world, emphasizing birds and photography. Their adventures have taken them from Papua New Guinea, to Madagascar, from Ethiopia to Columbia with numerous places in-between, like the Himalayas. Currently he works for the Oregon Eagle Foundation monitoring hundreds of golden eagle nests across southeast Oregon and enjoying the scenery, wildlife and adventures of the vast sagebrush ocean.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

To meet interesting people and travel on a budget and learn more about the local community

Music, Movies, and Books

Old rock and roll and Linda Ronstat

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Live on a small 45 ac island in the N Pacifica 500 mi NW of Hawaii
6 ft above sea level, population 3. Food supplies delivered once every 30 days while conducting research on seabirds, monk seals and green sea turtles

Teach, Learn, Share

Birding and photography

What I Can Share with Hosts

Birding

Countries I’ve Visited

Argentina, Australia, Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Guatemala, India, Kenya, Papua New Guinea, South Africa, Trinidad and Tobago