Career Opportunities

Good online resources for jobs/graduate programs in biology, ecology, natural resources, conservation, botany...

http://www.wfsc.tamu.edu/jobboard/

http://www.conbio.org/jobs/

http://www.nku.edu/~boycer/gradopps.html

http://nationalzoo.si.edu/UndergradInternships/

Link for Carolina Tiger Rescue "Bring Them Home" Campaign

Carolina Tiger plans to rescue 3 lions: Tarzan, Sheba, and Sebastian, and 3 tigers: Titan, Bali, and Java from the Wild Animal Orphanage in San Antonio, TX. The facility began moving towards closing at the end of August. Some of the new animals should be arriving at Karen's Keep (quarantine) by the end of the week.

Carolina Tiger needs to raise $7,500 to cover the cost of the animals' transport and initial medical care. Donate to our rescue campaign and help us "Bring Them Home"! funds raised in addition to $7500 will be put towards future rescues.

Please visit the website and consider a charitable donation for these animals.

http://carolinatigerrescue.org/news/2010/2010-11-06_WAORescue.asp

Visit the facebook page to get a look at these six cats!
http://www.facebook.com/index.php?lh=441fd662b1e57dec8cde6d775d66cf2f&#!/CarolinaTigerRescue

Carolina Tiger Rescue Holiday Update

For those of you who don't know, Carolina Tiger Rescue is my 'home territory,' the place that first introduced me to and helped me learn about so many exotic cat species. The people and the animals at this sanctuary are so amazing! I love each and every creature- two legged and four. The sanctuary is home to tigers, ocelots, caracals, servals, one bobcat, kinkajous, and binturongs. For those close by, now is a great time to consider becoming a member, volunteer, or adoptive parent at Carolina Tiger! The sanctuary will be receiving six new cats in the next few weeks: three lions and three tigers from a closing facility in Texas. With these new additions, help is always needed to continue ensuring the high quality of life maintained at Carolina Tiger Rescue. Also, with the holidays approaching, the priority item on their wish list are Motorola radios for animal care and safety coordination. Having dropped one of these radios into a five gallon bucket of water (oops), I know how heavily they are used and how essential they are to getting things done on the 55 acre facility. The sanctuary always welcomes new volunteers, so please visit their website to learn about new volunteer orientations. Adoptive parents donate a fixed rate in honor of the of the resident animals, thereby becoming the animal's "adoptive parent." Adoptive parents enjoy visits, enrichment creation, and playing active roles in the care of those animals. And finally, if you are looking for a way to give during the holidays, consider a charitable donation for the animals at Carolina Tiger Rescue. This might be cliche, but they really are some cool cats!

And if you aren't nearby or cannot afford the time to visit Carolina Tiger Rescue, visit the website to learn about how shopping Pampered Chef with give a portion of the proceeds to Carolina Tiger Rescue (good through December 6).

http://carolinatigerrescue.org/


Be sure to become a fan on facebook!
http://www.facebook.com/index.php?lh=441fd662b1e57dec8cde6d775d66cf2f&#!/CarolinaTigerRescue

 

Julio, one of my favorite ocelots, with his holiday pumpkin (October 2009)

Rat, But Not the Rodent

The project I'm working on has been a long time coming; clouded leopards have very unique reproductive problems, unfortunately which cannot be fixed with the snap of a finger (were this the case, I'm pretty sure I'd be famous right now). I'm working on the female side of things, but there is also a male aggression study going on that a new intern just arrived for. I'm working for a pretty cool lady named JoGayle Howard. JoGayle is quite literally the clouded leopard queen: she's headed up most of the studies and the advances in clouded reproduction. She's a theriogenologist, or a veterinarian who focuses on reproduction, and a PhD at the Smithsonian. She's done everything, from developing successful cryopreservation of sperm, laparoscopic artificial insemination in carnivores, and genome banking. In short, she's pretty awesome. Which by default, the project I'm working under, under the supervision of postdoc Rebecca Hobbs, is also awesome. For more insight into the project, check out this website:

http://cloudedleopard.org/default.aspx?link=research_inzoos

Having been here in Front Royal for a month, I've finally gotten into the swing of things with the project. I've cataloged, dried, and sorted more fecal samples than I care to know, and developed a system for which to extract each sample set. I'm using a boiling extraction process, which is pretty simple: fecal sample are collected from each animal over a pre-determined time period (one sample, or one week's worth, is not enough to quantify hormone changes in reaction to the study protocol); freeze-dried of all water (called lyophilization); and crushed and weighed out into test tubes. Once in the tubes, I add radioactivity that will later determine the extraction efficiency of each sample; that is, the radioactivity provides a way to show how much hormone was pulled from the fecal sample during the extraction process. This is essential because later steps will be measuring hormone levels, such as estrogen and progestogen. The extraction of this whole process takes place with the addition of ethanol and boiling the mixture for twenty minutes (smells great), then centrifuging (think worst merry-go-round ride ever), then centrifuging some more with some more ethanol, and drying down the supernatant two different times. There are more in-between steps, with some methanol and dilution buffer and a sonicator, the machine that cleans jewelry, but these are the basics. After I have my final dilution, called a cocktail (no joke!), I throw all the samples into a beta counter, a machine which measures the radiation emitted by beta-emitting nucleotides via light pulses (the scintillation fluid I add to the cocktail throws a nice prism ). In short, I find out if I did the whole process right and have proper extraction efficiencies for my samples. Usually, I do. I've got to re-run about twenty samples, and so far I've run almost 600. Once I'm done extracting all these samples, I'll hopefully have time left during the internship to run enzyme immunoassay plates (EIA) for the hormones. I'm looking forward to more procedures under the guidance of the lab manager and the dugong project being run by a visiting scientist from Australia. Consequently, I see a lot of this:

I guess this makes me a lab rat!

I've also looked into volunteering with the clouded leopards on site. I've had a good peek at two eight-month old leopards that are visiting, and I'm not sure there is anything more beautiful, or adorable, than these rascals. Although the clouded animal keeper, Jessica, might think otherwise of the very-demanding squawking these two cats can emit. I can hear it all the way down the hall!

Finally, a few of us went hiking in the Shenandoah last weekend. We had so much fun! Martin is a GIS intern who just arrived from Germany, so we took him out to see the last of the changing leaves. Two hikes and 7.5 miles later, we had seen a gorgeous peak and a lovely waterfall. I wondered why I was so exhausted during the first hike (it's not like I hiked every day this past summer), but then I realized that we were on the hike that, in less than a mile, you climb 900 ft in elevation. That's a lot of climbing and hating, in case you were wondering how to measure that. Once we got to the vista, however, all huffing and puffing was lost in the view of the Shenandoah valley in the fall. Scaling huge rocks, we sat atop the valley for almost an hour, taking in the view and having a Lion King moment or two (think Pride Rock).

 

Hike two was longer, but easier, and took us along a beautiful creek down to a waterfall. Instead of hiking to the cliff overlooking the lengthy fall, we opted to hike down into the midst of it. The slope wasn't very steep, but the view and the sounds were beautiful:

All in all, so far so good. I must get to bed- I've got to get into the lab early tomorrow!

Autumn Conservation Festival

I've been living at and working at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI) for four weeks now, and it has been pretty busy! I've really enjoyed getting to know each of the other interns, their interests, and their stories. We come from all over the country and all over the world, from Australia to Canada to Germany, and each individual is passionate for either a particular species, or a particular science. One of the girls is a visiting PhD student from Australia studying dugong endocrinology at a coastal research institute I actually visited while in Australia (dugongs are the Aussie version of manatees)! The intern lab trainer is doing her master's on lion endocrinology (the lionesses at the National Zoo had their cubs this fall!), and another two interns completed their master's in primate and elephant conservation, respectively. The current cheetah intern worked at the Iditarod this summer, and another is working towards vet school. The people here are so interesting! Be it education, endocrinology, veterinary medicine, or conservation ecology, this facility is full to the brim with bright minds and heavy ambitions.

There is perhaps no better way to illuminate the strides taken in conservation today than the SCBI's annual Autumn Conservation Festival. It's the only time each year that the facility is open to the public. Participants visit many booths throughout the facility to learn about current captive as well as wild conservation efforts for many species, from cranes to clouded leopards. Although not the entire facility is available to tour, many of the species residing on the facility are accessible to the public to watch and learn about. Being that I am doing steroid hormone research for clouded leopards, I naturally worked at the clouded leopard booth all weekend. We had sweet temporary tattoos, a fun game for adults and children alike testing their knowledge of wild cat species across the world, and featured MS and PhD projects currently working for clouded leopard conservation.

One of the tables at the clouded leopard booth featured this real leopard pelt. This individual cat was a zoo animal who died of natural causes and now serves as an educational tool. Visitors could touch the fur and see up close the curious, cloud-like pattern that gave the animal it's name. In addition, we discussed how clouded leopards are replacing tigers in the black markets for both fur sales and traditional medicines. Because tiger populations are in decline, hunters and poachers are turning to this smaller cat for their fur, to sell, and body parts (teeth, bones, fluids, meat) for traditional medicine (which, I'm going to say, probably won't cure your headache or impotency problem). Although laws against this exist, they are not strictly enforced in the clouded leopards home range, which extends through Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and farther south. These cats are arboreal, meaning they live in trees, though researchers do not know how often they spend their time between treetops and the ground. With poachers having better luck at finding these cats than conservationists, clouded leopard populations are unknown as well as unstable. Clouded leopards prey on monkeys, birds, small mammals, and deer. Of all the cats in the world, the clouded leopard has the largest canines relative to the size of it's skull... making it the living relative of the extinct saber-toothed cat. A master's student is currently studying these leopards through the use of non-invasive infrared camera trapping. These cameras, which are soundless as well as flashless, catch photos of wildlife in order to better assess what these cats are doing in their free time. Apparently one species of forest chicken is particularly fond of these cameras, as the student has collected more than one thousand shots of these birds sitting in front of the cameras (which are secured to trees at eye-level for the cats) and turning their heads in the idiotic fashion typical of your average farm chicken (I'm sure the clouded leopards eat them, too).

Meagan talks about clouded leopard physiology

With two booths, we were pretty busy! Heather (pictured right) is a PhD candidate studying male clouded leopard testosterone and cortisol to reduce male aggression towards females in captivity.

Listening intently to one of many very good questions! One of the infrared cameras I mentioned is sitting on top of the pelt. One interesting question I had to answer a lot from the small scientists: "How did you kill the clouded leopard?" WITH A LIGHT SABER! Just kidding.

I managed to score some pretty cool temporary tattoos when I walked around to the different booths! A video of the two female lions at the national zoo meeting the new male for the first time echoed throughout the facility (and my personal interpretation of this interaction consists of things I'm not willing to type out. But, that's just a guess.), drawing people in to learn about current projects to help with their survival. Other fun things included being able to see the maned wolves, checking out how tall some of the crane species are, and seeing some of both the clouded leopards and red pandas up close. I really enjoyed walking around the booths and learning about different conservation efforts, and I also learned a lot! Some highlights included visiting the Global Tiger Initiative booth (congratulations Ryan on the new job!), being able to basically lay down inside the girth of an elephant radio collar (not like the bobcat collars at all!), and consuming a vast amount of homemade potato chips. It was a joy to see the interest the community has in learning about the many species needing our help, and everyone enjoyed discussing what they are most passionate about. All in all, a great weekend!

Red pandas. Are. So. Cute.

 Sa Ming is one of the clouded leopards born at the national zoo. Here, he is seen wreaking general havoc.

 

A good still shot 

Yea!

One of the girls- I have not learned her name- having a good sniff.

Front Royal, Virginia

I have just arrived in Front Royal, VA to begin an internship with the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute. I am so excited! I start tomorrow on a project investigating fecal hormones for the purpose of in vitro fertilization (IVF) in the clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa). Using domestic cats as a model species, the project aims to optimize oocyte quality for IVF in the clouded leoard, as clouded leopards have difficulty breeding in captivity. Male aggression towards females in natural mating can often be fatal for the females, with the chance of losing limbs also high. With other projects studying ways to mitigate male aggression, artificial insemination of clouded leopards has also been examined. Clouded leopards are spontaneous ovulators, and combined with lack of response to hormone stimulation, artificial insemination has proved ineffective for these cats. I will be working for postdoc Dr. Rebecca Hobbs assessing how domestic cats respond to hormones such as estrogen and progestin for the purpose of developing a successful program of IVF for the extremely endangered clouded leopard.

I am staying just a few steps from the laboratory I will be working in. The dorm houses many interns during different semesters, and there are currently seven or eight women this fall. I've met three of my housemates in addition to a visiting cheetah scientist, and the backgrounds and scientific interests I've come across are amazing! My neighbors other than the interns include bison, cranes (cannot remember what species... will find out), and maned wolves. The cranes make a bit of noise at night and they sound like the combination between a loon and large woodpecker hacking away at a tree. Come breeding season in November, I have been promised sleepless nights. The bison are... big. I can see their field from my bedroom window, and the maned wolves are located throughout the compound and call to each other in the night (I am waiting to hear this). Since I've only seen the back end of one of these very red, very tall wolves, I cannot yet remark on their tall legs and glorious manes. I can, however, say that they are very sneaky. Other animals here include Przewalski's horses; onagers (a Persian donkey); Eld's deer; red pandas; cheetahs; and clouded leopards.

I arrived yesterday after driving from Whitefish, MT, to Houston, TX. The job offer came three weeks ago, so the whole process has been rather fast. I miss Montana and Bobbie already! As of when I left, we had yet to catch either of the two bobcats with the failed collars. This week, however, Bobbie has managed to catch a few more bears in her traps, so the excitement in Flathead National Forest never ends.

Training starts tomorrow- wish me luck!

Interesting Video

I dreamt last night I was at a wildlife sanctuary that housed rescued lions. In the dream, a small group of people entered the enclosure containing one lion and two lionesses. I was one of the people in the group. The entire dream consisted of this small group trying to not get bitten by these lions. Unfortunately, the male lion kept coming up to me and rubbing his heavy mane along my midsection, repeatedly mouthing my arms and legs in the way that small puppies do when they are teething. I spent the entire dream terrified that this lion was going to do what he was made to do: eat meat. Photographers were nearby trying to capture these moments in "conservation." While I often wake up wondering what the heck is going on in my subconscious, this dream was such a healthy reminder that although I love cats, I would be scared out of my mind to force shared space with one. That's just not smart! When I came across the following over coffee this morning, I couldn't have found a better example of why captive animals need respect, too!

I first saw this video courtesy of Big Cat Rescue, a wildlife sanctuary in Tampa, Florida. While I recognize that the benefit was for tigers and some sort of conservation, the message sent through this video does not positively support tiger conservation or accurate tiger behavior. I want to share it because there are so many things going wrong!  Foremost, it is not a tiger attack. This tiger, who was already clearly overstimulated and showing signs of stress, is very excited about the cologne the man is wearing and is trying to bask in the scent. Second, why did said man see fit to wrap his arms around a tiger's neck? Thirdly (that is actually a word!), the tiger should not have had the opportunity to get close to anyone. And finally, what the hell was a tiger doing at a fundraiser? Even if you don't know tiger behavior, it is easy to imagine how very quickly the situation could have gone awry and that man would have been killed. Such irresponsible tiger promotion! Both parties are very lucky, as the animal probably would have been destroyed for mauling a human, and well, the guy's luck is pretty self-explanatory.


Tiger Attacks At Fundraiser!