Anonymous - Private Citizen

Student, University of Colorado, Boulder, and prospective Ecology Graduate Student

Today’s Date: January 19, 2007

1. What interaction with an animal and/or nature in your life has had the biggest impact on you?

There are so many, and the biggest impact came from a progression of experiences. Just a very few of them: Staring at a posturing anole lizard when I was maybe 4. Almost stepping on a coral snake under a swingset when I was 9, and thinking oh, how pretty! At 10 or 11 fishing for bluegill and catfish with string and bread ball rigs, or making tiny crabs surface through the sand to watch them run back to the ocean. Bioluminescence-seeing if poking a stick in the water made patterns, or turned them off. Chasing fireflies. Petting a dolphin. Watching pelicans dive for fish, and seagulls try to rob them. When Busch Gardens, Tampa, really was a garden, wondering how flamingos there all knew how to move together and why they were so pink. Riding and feeding my horse. Seeing a bear lumber by in North Carolina when I was 12. First snowfall and sled ride - I was 12. Realizing sand dollars and starfish are alive. Collecting Coquinas. Swimming with an alligator in a Georgia lake (just a small 3 footer) when I was about 14. Being on a stilt cabin porch in the Chassahowitzka River when a flock of 20 or so vultures landed on the roof and stood there for an hour with wings spread. Always wondering why. Then after getting a zoology degree, being best qualified to kill and maim lab animals for biomedical research - rats, cats, dogs, macaque monkeys, baboons, which I did for 7 years, and finally coming to understand humans had no right to exploit animals.

2. Did you have a favorite place in the great outdoors during your childhood?

Yes, in trees, such as our orange, tangerine and grapefruit trees, since our housing development was carved out of a Floridian orange grove, or in giant oak trees in vacant lots. Also, in the Hillsborough River, for hours at a time, swimming and messing around in small boats.

Now? Anywhere in the deserts, forests, mountains where there is no sound of motorized vehicles, or on a river messing around in small boats.

3. As a former zookeeper, I would love to know what your favorite animal is, and why?

I like all animals, from zooplankton to elephants, but some favorites are small mammalian predators, as represented by mustelids, herpestids and viverrids. Their ecological niche as both predator and prey, their remarkable behavioral plasticity, and some of the species' (marten, fisher) obligate habitat specialization in areas of intense resource utilization, are all factors that fascinate me.

4. What do you think is the greatest environmental challenge facing us now, and what do you think will be the greatest challenge in the future?

I can't name just one. There are at least four: Climate change, Resource extraction, Land conversion/habitat loss, and human population growth, in no particular order, though population growth is driving all else.

5. If you could give everyone one piece of advice regarding the environment and our natural resources, what would it be?

In everything you do, eat, buy, or invest, reduce your impact, and encourage everyone you know to reduce their impact. If you want kids, adopt as many as you can!