For most of my childhood, the family television was covered in dust and cobwebs, forbidden from being used, except for special occasions such as the Stanley Cup or watching Lion King once per year on my birthday. A source of angst at the time, but a blessing in hindsight, I spent much of my free time cultivating a deep passion and curiosity for non-human animals. I loved reading about distant animals that seemed mythological from my southern Ontario suburban perspective (I had a healthy obsession with elephants) and examining invertebrates in the stream behind my house (my first introduction to a wetland, though sadly there were no turtles here).

I became a construction manager at a young age, spending recess in elementary school making ‘ladybug hotels’ in the butterfly garden, generously providing my little friends with pebble beds, tiny twig pillows and leaf blankets for maximum coziness. In the wintertime, I thoughtfully defrosted frozen buds on trees using hot water and covered their branches in various pieces of winter clothing to help them warm up for the spring. Middle school was a whole new ballgame; switching professions to join the dog walking and lemonade stand industries, I fundraised to help build a new road around instead of through the oldest oak tree in my town. I felt like a hero handing over the $88 I’d raised for the cause–my first taste of grassroots conservation.

Fast-forward to university! While studying for an environmental studies degree, I volunteered at the Ontario Turtle Conservation Centre, where I had the honour of meeting Blanding’s, Painted, Map, Musk, and Snapping Turtles for the first time. It was love at first sight. During the summers, I pursued my newfound turtle love as a Student Park Naturalist at Pinery Provincial Park, where I delivered interpretive, turtle-related programs to park visitors, and helped out with the Turtle Project whenever possible.

During my five years at Pinery, I’ve been humbled and inspired by the collective passion of my team members and their devotion to the health of the park’s freshwater coastal dunes, oak savanna, and wet meadow, along with the enchanting biodiversity that resides in these globally rare and declining ecosystems. I have occupied a variety of positions and have worked with many different species-at-risk including snakes, skinks, bumble bees, birds, butterflies, and more, but one thing that remained constant amongst my various roles was my salivation at the whiff of any opportunity to help with Pinery’s Turtle Project. The project had commenced in 2008, years before I came to the park, but due to a lack of funding it had since dwindled in scope, restricting the amount of time I could ultimately devote to its efforts.

In 2022, I wrote a grant proposal seeking to reinvigorate and expand turtle conservation efforts in the park with the procurement of radio telemetry and Passive Integrated Transponder (PIT) tagging equipment, hoop traps, and salaries for two turtle technician positions to oversee and implement the Turtle Project. The grant’s success led to the greatest field season of my life and some truly outstanding results (recruiting over 400 hatchlings to the park’s turtle population from the 63 nests protected in the 2023 nesting season, with many more to emerge in the spring)! My work, combined with volunteer experience with various turtle conservation projects around the province, has allowed me to work with every wonderfully unique, native turtle species in Ontario, something I’ll happily boast about to anyone who will listen–as long as no one makes me decide which one is my favourite. (Okay fine, I’ll admit it, I’ve always had an extra special place in my heart for snappers, the misunderstood gentle giants–but don’t tell the other turtles I said that!)

Between field seasons at Pinery, I have supplemented my education with stand-alone courses, such as Planning & Managing Effective Conservation Projects, Ontario Reptile and Amphibian Survey Course, and most notably Tropical Field Herpetology, which I was lucky enough to attend twice, in Sarapiquí, Costa Rica, once as a student and once as a technician.

My first time attending the Tropical Field Herpetology course in 2022 was simultaneously the most challenging and rewarding experience I have had as a conservationist to date. Travelling to the heart of the rainforest to collect data on local reptiles and amphibians in extreme environmental conditions, at extreme times of the day and night, and working closely with strangers and highly venomous creatures (the former being much scarier than the latter), are the ingredients of both a herpetologist’s wildest dream and a neurodivergent’s worst nightmare. Working intentionally to expand my comfort zone step by step, I not only survived but thrived! The emotional reaction evoked by witnessing some of earth’s greatest beauty in an ecosystem literally crawling (and flapping, scuttling, and scurrying) with biodiversity, doing work that would ultimately contribute to their protection and continued survival, confirmed the notion that this is where I belonged, and this is what I was meant to do.

I was humbled to be peer-voted to return to the Tropical Field Herpetology course the following year as a technician. On this trip, I had the honour of observing the South American Snapping Turtle, my target species. Having seen the glamorous Black Wood Turtle and shy White-lipped Mud Turtle the year prior, this completed the glorious turtle trifecta of the shelled residents of the biological reserve we stayed at. It is humbling simply to observe these beautiful animals, these keystone creatures whose health can determine the health of an entire ecosystem. It reminds one of one’s tiny role in nature’s playbook, which encompasses all life, no one teammate less or more important than the other. This includes of course the formidable South American Snapping Turtle herself, and equally the tiny garden growing on her shell, each relying on the other, and both of equal importance to the functionality of the larger rainforest ecosystem they inhabit together.

Reflecting on these two experiences, I acknowledge with inexpressible gratitude that I have been fortunate enough to experience some of the greatest privileges life has to offer–education, travel, and living one’s dream (for me, working with wildlife) full time. The most important thing I learned on these trips was the profound truth in the expression, “growth happens outside the comfort zone.” Every time I did something I thought I couldn’t do, my comfort zone grew to encompass the new challenge, and suddenly, previously unfathomable challenges began to appear within much closer reach. In the wise words of Lil Wayne, “the top gets higher the more that I climb.” Looking forward, I am so excited for this next phase of my climb, and I can’t wait to encounter the heights that await me beyond this peak.

The foundation of my career has been a combination of hard work, open-mindedness, and sponge-like absorbency for all that I learn, as well as several compassionate, generous mentors who have taught and inspired me in more ways than I can list here. I am beyond honoured to have been selected for this program. I look forward to developing greater proficiency in research design and analysis, working with the marvellous array of endemic species Mauritius has to offer, and continuing to develop the knowledge and skills to be able to reciprocate what has been given to me by the parks, conservation, and herpetology communities, and of course, the earth.