kdorrick

I was fascinated with wildlife from a young age, particularly with African flora and fauna. While my sisters dressed in tutus, I wore a helmeted safari hat and pretended to be the next David Attenborough. I begged my father every weekend to take me the San Francisco Zoo to watch the giraffes and elephants. My love for wildlife evolved into curiosity when we took a family trip to Kenya and Tanzania and I observed the large number game vehicles surrounding and straining a lioness and her cubs. In college, I spent a semester abroad in Namibia focusing on conservation and human-wildlife conflict, where I conducted my first pilot study on the frequency that large mammals escaped through unmaintained holes along the western Etosha National Park fenceline. By the time I had finished the study, I knew I wanted to pursue a career in human-influenced effects on wildlife. I graduated college with a passion for African wildlife and became an intern for Global Vision International (GVI), participating in wildlife conservation on Karongwe Private Game Reserve (KPGR) in South Africa. My love for research drove me to complete my Field Guides Association of Southern Africa (FGASA) Level One and I was offered a paid position with GVI at the end of my internship. Though I always knew I would go back to school for conservation biology, I was thrilled to hone my skills in the field. During my three years with GVI I learned research techniques and applied them to my work and to human-influenced impacts. For three years I held positions of steadily increasing responsibility at KPGR, rising from intern to Base Manager in less than three years. From my experiences, I hope to use my degree to become a lead field researcher for a conservation NGO, combining my interest in road ecology and human impacts on wildlife with my drive and love for fieldwork.

January 2014