Conservation & Tracking (cont.)
As landscapes become more and more fragmented, connectivity of open space and core habitats is essential. Beyond the fragmentation of our landscapes, people are becoming increasingly fractured from their natural environment. To elicit true environmental change and sustainability, Meghan believes that any conservation act must include both scientific and cultural solutions. In her work, Meghan integrates sound scientific practice and data collection with citizen monitoring and environmental outreach. Through this model a relationship of reciprocity is created; one where the environment benefits from human interaction and humans benefit from the lessons nature has to offer through direct experience.
My memories from three years old consist of large sandstone rocks, huge live oaks, dusty fire roads, and tide pools filled with life. My parents belonged to the school of go play outside, even in pouring rain or blazing heat, which was more often the case in the Santa Monica Mountains of southern California. Children in my neighborhood could be heard shouting as doors banged shut, “I’ll be home when it’s dark.”
When my parents divorced, I benefitted from living in two different households. I was able to experience two different habitats, both filled with nature. Some weeks I tromped and crawled through dense chaparral shrubs of the Santa Monica Mountains. Other weeks found me in the city of Santa Monica, balanced precariously on top of an eight-foot fence ready to swing onto a ficus branch in order to scramble to the top of an apartment roof. Like the raccoons raiding our dumpsters, I learned to traverse a city block without ever setting foot on the ground.
When I was 14 years old, I visited Tanzania for 3 weeks, a trip that marked my life with a need for open space and social justice as I learned not only about wildlife but also about the iniquities of colonialism. In high school nature became a place of solace from the intense unrest of my teenage years, providing sanctuary I could not find elsewhere.
My memories from three years old consist of large sandstone rocks, huge live oaks, dusty fire roads, and tide pools filled with life. My parents belonged to the school of go play outside, even in pouring rain or blazing heat, which was more often the case in the Santa Monica Mountains of southern California. Children in my neighborhood could be heard shouting as doors banged shut, “I’ll be home when it’s dark.”
When my parents divorced, I benefitted from living in two different households. I was able to experience two different habitats, both filled with nature. Some weeks I tromped and crawled through dense chaparral shrubs of the Santa Monica Mountains. Other weeks found me in the city of Santa Monica, balanced precariously on top of an eight-foot fence ready to swing onto a ficus branch in order to scramble to the top of an apartment roof. Like the raccoons raiding our dumpsters, I learned to traverse a city block without ever setting foot on the ground.
When I was 14 years old, I visited Tanzania for 3 weeks, a trip that marked my life with a need for open space and social justice as I learned not only about wildlife but also about the iniquities of colonialism. In high school nature became a place of solace from the intense unrest of my teenage years, providing sanctuary I could not find elsewhere.
At UC Santa Cruz my relationship with the environment developed yet another aspect. Although I was a pre-med major with an emphasis in molecular and cellular development, I began to take taxonomy, animal physiology, and botany classes. I wanted to know how the microscopic and macroscopic interacted.
The summer after my sophomore year, I traveled to Nepal to research the effects of grazing on plant diversity. For the first time I came in contact with villages subsisting primarily from what they could grow, hunt, and collect. The Nepalese interacted with nature as part of it rather than separate from it. I had seen a glimpse of this when in Tanzania, but in Nepal I lived amongst people who did not research land but had better knowledge of ecology and its interactions than most of my professors. For the first time I understood the importance of knowing your place. At the time in academia there was no language for the importance of Native wisdom and its impact on ecology.
The summer after my sophomore year, I traveled to Nepal to research the effects of grazing on plant diversity. For the first time I came in contact with villages subsisting primarily from what they could grow, hunt, and collect. The Nepalese interacted with nature as part of it rather than separate from it. I had seen a glimpse of this when in Tanzania, but in Nepal I lived amongst people who did not research land but had better knowledge of ecology and its interactions than most of my professors. For the first time I understood the importance of knowing your place. At the time in academia there was no language for the importance of Native wisdom and its impact on ecology.
During my junior year, I interned under Dr. Leo Ortiz who was researching elephant seals at Ano Nuevo and worked with one of his graduate students to study the genetic fitness of northern elephant seals. Under Ortiz’s tutelage I completed a thesis on the health and fitness of Botta’s pocket gopher populations determined by genetic diversity and mitochondrial density.
Through these projects I learned how cellular functions relate to their external environments. I began to grasp the practical applications of genetics, mitochondrial functions, electron microscopes, scientific method and statistical analysis. The necessity of how an animal lived in its habitat and what influenced its health, including genetic bottle necking, became apparent.
Though my knowledge expanded tremendously, internally I was restless. I was fascinated and whole heartedly entranced by my work, but the intrusive nature of our invasive research practices did not sit well with me. I found myself in an academic world with no words to express how I was feeling. Traditional scientific research had no room for emotions like empathy, compassion, or kindness.
Through these projects I learned how cellular functions relate to their external environments. I began to grasp the practical applications of genetics, mitochondrial functions, electron microscopes, scientific method and statistical analysis. The necessity of how an animal lived in its habitat and what influenced its health, including genetic bottle necking, became apparent.
Though my knowledge expanded tremendously, internally I was restless. I was fascinated and whole heartedly entranced by my work, but the intrusive nature of our invasive research practices did not sit well with me. I found myself in an academic world with no words to express how I was feeling. Traditional scientific research had no room for emotions like empathy, compassion, or kindness.
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After I graduated I traveled and worked in Japan and the Philippines with a plan of eventually entering medical school. Upon returning to the U.S., I felt that medical school was no longer the path for me, nor was wildlife research. During this time I was introduced to environmental and experiential education. I co-created and directed a 501c3 outdoor education company that served public and private schools, adjudicated youth, elder hostels, corporations, universities, and teachers. I spent the next eight years in education learning how to convey my knowledge of biology, ecology and environmental science to people outside the academic world.
It was also during this time that I began my journey into animal tracking. I sought classes, found other trackers and spent hour and hours and hours learning to read patterns on a landscape. I also learned from herbalists, storytellers, and medicine people who opened up alternative ways to interact with nature. I began to be part of my environment rather than quantify it, much like I had done as a child inherently. In 2006, I left education and travelled extensively internationally and throughout the U.S. to delve more deeply into tracking. I visited diverse ecosystems and learned to recognize universal ecological patterns as well as anomalies in these patterns. I began to decipher the details that make each ecosystem unique. |
These travels helped me to understand an essential component of conservation, perspective. It is essential to understand both the unique qualities of a place and its universal components, which connect it to all other places.
I was fortunate to track and observe species that I had not yet encountered and learn animal behavior. I lived in South Africa for months at a time teaching ecology and seeking out trackers. It was in there that I learned to truly see tracks as they were rather than what I hoped them to be. We all want the big dog track to be a mountain lion, but in Africa I learned to see the value of all animals tracks and to see their beauty.
Bobcat Tracks
Ironically the decade away from academia brought me back to wildlife research. Through tracking I had found medium in which to observe and distill information about animals without being invasive. While staying at his research facility in Gardiner MT, I worked with Dr. James Halfpenny, a tracker and carnivore biologist. He and I explored and tracked the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, where I was able to experience grizzlies and wolves first hand. From Halfpenny, I learned how track data could inform policy and provide baseline data for research.
I was also awarded a fellowship to work in Vermont with Sue Morse of “Keeping Track.” Morse taught me how to read a landscape and introduced to me practice of using track data to identify wildlife corridors crossing busy highways. During my time in Vermont, we taught the Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire Departments of Transportation how to identify tracks and wildlife hotspots. With this knowledge transportation workers could maintain, repair, and build safe wildlife passages across dangerous roads. Again I witnessed tracking as a powerful tool to inform the public, policy, and wildlife conservation.
I was also awarded a fellowship to work in Vermont with Sue Morse of “Keeping Track.” Morse taught me how to read a landscape and introduced to me practice of using track data to identify wildlife corridors crossing busy highways. During my time in Vermont, we taught the Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire Departments of Transportation how to identify tracks and wildlife hotspots. With this knowledge transportation workers could maintain, repair, and build safe wildlife passages across dangerous roads. Again I witnessed tracking as a powerful tool to inform the public, policy, and wildlife conservation.
After my travels and while attaining my MFA in non-fiction writing, I once more began working in the field of biology and conservation as a freelance contractor. In 2010, I began work with the Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration at UC Santa Barbara on a joint project integrating wildlife corridor research and citizen science monitoring. Through this experience I developed a working model that bridges local communities to conservation and management planning of their wild and open spaces.
Currently, I am collaborating with several conservation groups such as the Wildlands Network, the Staying Connected Initiative, LandPaths, Stewards of the Coast and Redwoods, and other NGO’s to initiate citizen science monitoring programs to protect wilderness linkages for both humanity and wildlife.
Please see CV for more detail.
Currently, I am collaborating with several conservation groups such as the Wildlands Network, the Staying Connected Initiative, LandPaths, Stewards of the Coast and Redwoods, and other NGO’s to initiate citizen science monitoring programs to protect wilderness linkages for both humanity and wildlife.
Please see CV for more detail.
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