About Me

I earned my undergraduate degree at Cal Poly Humboldt in Wildlife Management and Conservation in Spring 2019. I have always been extremely interested in wildlife and their habitat and am very grateful to have had the opportunity to build a career around my passion. I volunteer with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) Natural Resource Volunteer Program (NRVP) where I work with the legal cannabis permitting team. I spend my free time searching for wildlife items, going on ride-alongs with local law enforcement, spending time with my dog (Sausage), and hanging out with fellow wildlife enthusiasts.

For my graduate research project, I will be studying grey fox habitat usage on trespass cannabis grows with Dr. Richard Brown and Dr. Greta Wengert at Integral Ecology Research Center (IERC).

I am interested in studying trespass growth impacts because they pose a massive threat to wildlife conservation on California’s public lands. Currently, less than half of all illegal cannabis cultivation operations are known by law enforcement, and less than 10 percent are ever reclaimed or restored. Illegal cultivation sites are extremely destructive to the environment in several ways. Surface water is siphoned off in large quantities to water thousands of plants, which leads to streams drying up, destroying potential salmonid habitat. Massive sections of forest are clear-cut to make room for growing structures. Hundreds to thousands of pounds of trash are found, along with large quantities of fertilizers, and illegal pesticides and insecticides. Poaching of numerous wildlife species is very common, and there have been several accounts of grow sites being littered with rat poison to keep wildlife from consuming the marijuana crop. These black-market operations are destroying California’s natural resources and wildlife.

Undergraduate Institution

Cal Poly Humboldt: B.S. Wildlife and Conservation

Advisor

Dr. Richard Brown