I remember being nine years old and wondering who was going to save the tiger.
I CAN RECALL WITH VIVID DETAIL lying belly-down, chin on my arms, the hot sun beating down on my scratched-up legs as I watched tadpoles metamorphose into froglets. I spent the summers of my childhood like this, smelling like mud and the lily pads that grew in the creek by my house. As a child, I didn’t know people could make a living staring at frogs. Today, I combine my curiosity of the natural world with my overwhelming need to make the world a better place. And sometimes this means I get to stare at frogs all day, or work with carnivore DNA. Everyone answers a particular call. For me, it’s using science for wildlife conservation.
Knowledge is liberating. Have you ever studied something just for the sake of learning it? When we learn, we understand, and we want to learn more. I encourage others to be passionate about the outdoors and science because I know I can’t do it alone. Wildlife conservation and environmental stewardship need people of all backgrounds and interests in order to secure a sustainable future. I remember being nine years old and wondering who was going to save the tiger. Hopefully, it’ll be me, but it’ll also be you, your friend, your mom, your neighbor. We’ll do it together.
When you think of scientists, do you automatically think of a white man in a lab coat? I have a lab coat, but I’m not a man, I’m often covered in dirt, and my hair is a tangled mess. And yet I’m a scientist. Scientists have a public image problem, and it’s centered on us being seen as cold: warmth, trust, and credibility are traits I think many scientists have to work hard for in order to be given space on a particular platform. As a woman, I have had to work twice as hard to receive less than the same amount of consideration as my male counterparts. We want to spend our time talking about science, not justifying our qualifications or proving that we can hike that mountain.
Professionally, I can’t take credit for discovering anything entirely novel and unheard of, but I have experienced a lot of things for the very first time and been utterly fascinated by them. Whether it was the results of my master’s degree on bobcat ecology or learning how to catch salamanders for the first time, they were my discoveries, and the whole experience was awesome. I want everyone to feel that way. It’s empowering, it’s invigorating . . . it’s living. Whatever it is, you don’t have to be a biologist to feel endless wonder with discovering something in nature. Maybe five thousand people have seen that summit view, or swam in that river, or watched a tadpole grow legs, but the feeling of living it, discovering it, is yours.
IMOGENE CANCELLARE
