I feel like the career(s) that I end up doing, I will have to compromise a good amount of my beliefs.
If I end up being a wildlife conservationist in East or Central Africa, it seems that I will have to pick a side and possibly stick to it.
I am a wildlife lover, you name it, I most sincerely love it, besides mosquitoes, fuck mosquitoes but they serve their purpose.
Considering the fact that I am a human and I am part of the “dominant” species on Earth, I do feel the need to protect wildlife. Although, with wildlife conservation comes the management of wildlife, meaning you are attempting to reduce, maintain, or increase certain species populations. There are many aspects I can specialize in like the Economics side of it, political side like Policy making and law, or population management side of conservation, they are all interchangeable and all overlap.
I have been leaning towards the Resource Economics side of it and I am into it, but recently reading a blog by a wildlife economist named Michael Norton-Griffith, I am slowly retracting from this decision to focus on the economic side of Conservation. Michael Norton-Griffith blogs more about how the value of wildlife has decreased especially in East Africa due to the restrictions placed on hunting wildlife which is a huge contrast to one of my “role models” Richard Leakey who has his fair share of policies I don’t like all too much such as the “Shoot to Kill” policy in Kenya that makes it legal to shoot to kill poachers or suspected poachers, because they will do the same to rangers. I feel like if I do get into the activism of fighting poachers I will have blood on my hands indirectly from both the “Shoot to Kill” policy. I honestly do not want to kill my own people.
it is really frustrating thinking about it, because as a child this is what I have always wanted to do, is to protect wildlife and to fight poachers, obviously then I did not understand and know half of the things I do now, but I want to stay true to that naive girl sitting in the back of our borrowed Range rover while my dad took my family and I on a safari. I also want to stay true to myself and simply have a better understanding and connection with wildlife, free from all this bullshit.
I know it is naive, but I am a big ass hippie on the inside and I just want some peace. But that is definitely a dream I am slowly letting go of, because I’ve had too many rude awakenings.
The political side of conservation is what can make one of the largest impacts, but I am trying to avoid politics as much as I can in my career.
One option though, that is really interesting is population management by assisting wildlife in reproduction and rehabilitation back into the wild. Although, the processes of getting semen, especially from wildlife, makes me feel like it is borderline bestiality. Like, I am interested in mammalian and bird sexuality, mainly apes and monkeys, their sexual behavior is so diverse and very much about dominion and power. I feel like maybe observing, or going into the parks to study wildlife just by documenting them and not feeling like I am violating them is the best route to go at this point, but who knows, that may all change.
Maybe I should’ve just done Pre-Vet.
