Nicole - Women in Science

Wildlife biologist Nicole Weprin discusses how she first discovered her passion for conservation as a child exploring the outdoors.

 

Video by Lisa Cox and Olivia Beitelspacher / USFWS

 

Video transcript:

 

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My name is Nicole Weprin,

 

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I am a wildlife biologist with the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and I work for the California

 

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condor recovery program here at Hopper Mountain National Wildlife Refuge Complex. I

 

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grew up in the state of Colorado and my parents were always very

 

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adamant that my sister and I spend time outside. And so we weren't allowed to play video games

 

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we had limited amounts of television; their emphasis was get out and

 

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play. When we were watching television I always wanted to watch PBS and Nature

 

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Channel and so watching those shows and combining that with just spending as much time outside

 

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is I did, I would look at the people in those shows and say, "I want to be that

 

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person." So while working with the condor program here in California, we

 

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trapped a bird and we could tell immediately that something wasn't quite right. So we discovered that she

 

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had lead poisoning and she was very, very sick. While it was really sad,

 

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it also reminded me that we were here

 

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for a purpose. We can make a difference and we need to keep fighting for it

 

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and we need to keep putting in the hard work in years to come so that we can call the species

 

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recovered. I think we need more women and just diversity in general

 

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in science because that's what society looks like. The fact of the matter is we've been able to make

 

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breakthroughs and we've been able to move this entire field forward because

 

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everyone has come to it with their own experiences and been able to share that. And I think it makes

 

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the science better, I think it makes the programs work better, and I think

 

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it just makes our experience on this planet richer. My motivation and my drive for

 

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what I do in life, both in my career and in my personal life,

 

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is conserving the places that meant so much to me as a child and continue to mean just as much

 

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to me as an adult. This is a tough field, it really is and I think that's what makes it

 

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so special because the people who work in this environment,

 

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they're the people that are here because they love it and they're passionate about what they do. If you have passion for it,

 

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trust me, that's going to get you through and it's really, really rewarding.

 

Done