Rachel Henry - Women in Science

Wildlife biologist Rachel Henry talks about her early childhood memories and how it led her to career in wildlife conservation. Video by USFWS.

 

Credit: Lisa Cox and Ashley McConnell/USFWS.

 

Video transcript:

 

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I knew what I wanted to do as a career early on. I remember

 

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in third-grade, I don't know why I remember being in third-grade and knowing that I

 

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wanted to train dolphins

 

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and that was kind of the like adolescent version of what I actually do now, you know,

 

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it's that it's something that a third-grader can

 

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You know, digest. And as the years grew and grew, and grew, it became more I

 

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want to be a marine biologist. Actually I want to be an aquatic biologist, which is what I got my degree and

 

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that and third-grade moment came from

 

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Being out in the streams my mom was a forest biologist. So being in the

 

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streams for storing creeks with her, thinking about the fish, thinking about the

 

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invertebrates. And that really was the driver and

 

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Yeah the driver for me to become a biologist, and kind of carry on that legacy.

 

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I mostly work with California tiger

 

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salamander. I didn't know a lot about it before I started working for the Ventura Fish and Wildlife

 

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office. But it has quickly become my like keystone species

 

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It is more than just an endangered species to me it's a link

 

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between me and private landowners. The species mostly occurs on private lands and

 

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it gives me the chance to connect with the community

 

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It's not always the most positive thing, but it tends to always get there. A lot of times you

 

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find in Santa Barbara county, that's where the population I work on the most is located, we

 

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have these legacy ranching families their grandfather's grandfather,

 

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grandfather started this ranch back, you know, eons ago and it means a

 

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lot of them. Now when I work with these ranchers are just

 

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or local landowners, or counties, or state agencies you name it

 

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and we get conservation on the ground, and looking at hillside that's maybe being conserved and

 

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will be in perpetuity, and knowing that-that hillside will always be there for my

 

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son to come look out or walk that trail is everything

 

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I mean that's now what gets me up in the morning. Doing good,

 

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not only for the community, the state, the world, but for my son.

Done