Projects for Wildlife Podcast

Ashley Blacow-Draeger shares her love for the ocean and how it formed all her decisions in her career. Along the journey she had fun and achieved a lot for ocean conservation in California. This episode is full of advice, tips, and laughter when it comes to deep sea coral projects and multi-dimensional collaborations.

Melissa Cristina Marquez is a Latina marine biologist and wildlife educator with a BA (Hons) in Marine Ecology and Conservation degree from New College of Florida, USA and an MSc in Marine Biology from Victoria University of Wellington, NZ. She is a freelance environmental contributor, and founder of The Fins United Initiative (TFUI), a program that brings attention to the unusual and diverse sharks (and their relatives) of the world and their researchers. Marquez also regularly hosts #STEMSaturdays on Twitter to provide career guidance and advice to young women in STEM worldwide.

Mike Veale is a southern California native who has worked extensively with Animals for the majority of his career. He launched Global Conservation Force to help protect wildlife and improve the livelihood of wildlife park rangers who risk their lives in the field.

In 2014, after years of watching the populations of animals under his care rapidly dwindle, Mike decided to take action. His lengthy zoo keeping career combined with an active, combat-sport-heavy lifestyle gave Mike the unique experience needed to fight on the front line of conservation. Mike traveled to South Africa and survived the intensive boot camp training required before finally becoming an anti-poaching ranger in Kruger National Park. After several months of fighting poaching, Mike returned to America, and Global Conservation Force was founded. He continues to go back and forth between the US and Africa working on direct impact wildlife conservation projects, local community support and anti poaching patrols.

Dr. Vanessa Pirotta is a Woman in STEM, science communicator, marine scientist and presenter. Her research is focused on cetacean (whale, dolphin and porpoise) conservation. She loves sharing her research and engaging people with STEM. Vanessa's most well-known research involves the use of emerging technologies such as drones for whale conservation. Vanessa has led pioneering research in collaboration with industry experts to develop custom-built, waterproof drones to collect whale snot (visible plume of spray) from large whales for an assessment of whale health. Whale research has taken Vanessa around the world including Tonga, Antarctica and most recently, Madagascar. In this episode we talk in depth about her research with humpback whales, drones, microbes.

Project management is one of the most critical components of a successful business or organization. In this episode project management terminology and process are covered to help you ask the right questions to get the right answers so you can achieve project success. Project management affects revenues and liabilities, and it ultimately interacts with customer or client satisfaction and retention. Whether you organization has only one project or many the key to all projects is they are temporary. Projects are a means toward a goal, and the goal will eventually be reached. To make this happen a project manager is selected to lead a project. This person is a very well-organized person, one who is goal-oriented and passionate about process. A project manager must work well under pressure, provide leadership and know how to motivate people to do their best. Beyond people skills, communications skills are paramount. And they must know the methods and techniques that help deliver projects successfully. This episode is all about those committed to learning and being a change agent as a project manager!

Dr. Sarah Peterson is a wildlife biologist who studies elephant seals. Her toxicology study revealed the depths of mercury in the ocean water column and how it relates to seal health. Her toxicology study revealed the depths of mercury in the ocean water column. In this episode we talk about elephant seals in depth from their morphology to their diving behavior. If you have ever wondered how deep elephant seals dive you'll soon find out in this episode. Sarah provides an in depth review on the different aspects of a wildlife research project. From developing a hypothesis to actually collecting data, and then moving into analysis and publication. If you love science and want to start a wildlife research project you'll love this episode!

This episode is dedicated to focusing on your goals - that's right staying in your lane and doing what's brining the most joy into your life. Last year I wanted to launch a podcast - yet every time I thought about one I did not know what to cover in an episode - it stopped me in my tracks.

For the past four years most people that come to me for advice typically want to know how to launch a project, keep their project on track, how to design a schedule, budget, a project plan.

Literally all the "simple" things I've learned as a project manager over the last 19 years. Yet these things are not simple in some cases - so it's with this that I launched Projects For Wildlife Podcast.

I think it's important to continue to learn from leaders who are in the field protecting wildlife and saving their habitats - by replicating success we gain more traction and with that we can do more and become more confident that we are making progress towards our goals. Yet the one thing we have to do is stay focused. So that is why I this episode is super important to your wildlife project. It's all about staying focused. Here are the four steps for creating goals that you can stay focused on over the next 30 days. Step 1: Write down your goals (all of them) every single thing you'd love to achieve in 30 days. Step 2: Narrow down to your top three goals. Yes only three! Step 3 - WHY DO YOU WANT TO ACHIEVE THESE GOALS. Step 4 - Are there any show stoppers? If so how will you overcome them.

Aeon for Ocean was founded by Aeon, a 7-year-old from Minnesota, to empower his peers to protect the ocean and this beautiful planet. Aeon has been passionate about marine life since he was two years old, and he is an avid advocate for the ocean and its creatures. His love of the world's oceans and his drive for conservation has inspired his parents and classmates alike. Living in the Midwest, far from the coast, made Aeon especially curious about how people inland are connected to marine ecosystems. Our oceans are the life support of planet Earth, an interconnected system of all the Earth's waters. Aeon for Ocean's mission is to educate kids on marine life while focusing on ocean conservation and helping them create awareness about the importance of oceans from within their schools and communities.

One of my guests after the recording stopped had mentioned how heavy and hard this work can be. In fact over the past 19 years since my bachelor's degree I've heard professors, managers, research colleagues, and friends talk about burnout in one aspect or another. And even if they did not exactly say exactly the word burnout I believe that is what they were all describing. A general description of the health of a person, where emotional, mental, or physical overload take place is what I am considering conservation burnout. Burnout as it relates to people working in conservation is the result of an imbalance of time allowed for relaxation, emotional and mental recovery which is needed to keep going. I think this topic is incredibly important to talk about in the conservation space. With the heaviness of extinction and climate change looming, and highly dedicated people committing their entire life to protect wildlife and our resources there is no wonder that the exhaustion will kick in at some point. The manifestation of burnout can be prevented if you take proper steps to prevent it. I am going to talk about burnout in three stages and a few ways to prevent it and/or overcome Burnout if it happens to you.

Suzanne Asha Stone is a leader who protect wolves, and other wild dogs around the world. Working with ranchers she has seen non-lethal management of wolves work - this means that we do not have to kill predators that share ranch land with humans. She has seen ranchers as part of the solution to wolf conservation. In the U.S. wolves are considered being removed from the Endangered Species List. If this happens wolves will be decimated from our country. Wolves have not fully recovered as a species and are not seen in most of their original ranges. You can sign the Defenders of Wildlife petition to save wolves at bitly.com/protectwolves. Listen to more tips on how to implement coexistence methods into your wildlife project.