Hello everyone,
I am currently an ecology student, doing my honours in population genetics in South Africa, although I initially started my journey into conservation by becoming a veterinary nurse. Growing up, I had always loved wildlife, nature and supporting animal welfare causes. I knew I wanted to work hands-on with animals, day dreaming constantly of wildlife rescue and rehabilitation, and so vet nursing seemed like a good first step. I was extremely fortunate to land my first job at the on-site veterinary clinic of the Cheetah Conservation Fund in Namibia. Here I became acquainted with a number of amazing conservationists and was totally in awe to see the intricacies and "behind-the-scenes" of what goes into solving some of our biggest conservation problems.
After a year of soaking up as much conservation inspiration as possible, I decided to go back to studying with the aim of coming back to the conservation world in a research capacity. I initially had to make some capital to afford study fees, and so spent a further year working as an assistant to a wildlife and equine vet in the rural town of Riversdale, South Africa. Three years later, after working part-time as an emergency and critical care nurse whilst studying full-time, I have qualified with my BSc, am starting my post-grad years and am finally back on my journey to contribute to the conservation of our beautiful, natural world!
I am passionate about conservation, animal welfare and making research-based science relevant and accessible to everyone. I am so excited to be able to learn from and engage with the conservation community, and look forward to getting to know you all!
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Such a great photo, thanks for sharing Grace! :)
Thank you Kate!
Welcome to WildHub Grace! Your dedication to conservation shows in your blog and I wish you lots of luck with your post-grad. I too started as a vet nurse and this knowledge has proven to be valuable when looking at the role animal health and disease transmission in conservation. If you like to get to know more community members, perhaps this new activity that we will be starting soon may be of interest to you; it's called WildHub Fika.
Thank you so much for the kind words Thirza! It's nice to know how other people have come to conservation through different backgrounds as well. Vet nursing was an amazing stepping stone and I have no doubt the knowledge I gained along the way will always remain useful.
I have signed up for Fika, and am looking forward to meeting everyone!
Wonderful! Thanks for signing up Grace and we will keep you posted on this activity! We're planning to start it around our WildHub Festival week this June.