The Girl Who Lived With Wolves
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Oct. 3, 2013
Jackie Hulina was a master's student in the Michigan State University's Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability.
If I had a name-tag, it would say "Hello, My name is Jackie," but my friends like to call me "The Girl Who Lived With Wolves."
Oddly enough, 15 years ago I would have been called "The Girl Who is Too Afraid To Put Her Feet on the Ground Near Her Aunt's Dog." Since then, I've worked with all sorts of animals - penguins, porcupines, snakes, hamsters... and as my username suggests, wolves. Unfortunately, the period of my life where Iwas working as an animal care intern for wolves, lions, and bears (oh my!) has passed, but ever since I have been interested in conserving endangered species.
Read more about my internship at the Wildlife Science Center in Columbus, Minn., here.
Conservation is how I ended up at Michigan State University working for Jack Liu, also affectionately known on campus as "the panda guy." No, I'm not working with pandas. but there are a lot of endangered species out there, and they're not all big and fluffy.
I'm studying a species nick-named "the firebird." This species has been the poster-child of endangered species recovery success, so much so that it may be delisted in the next few years. I'm just starting on this journey, but I invite you to follow along as I discover not only how to become a researcher, but what it takes to save an endangered species, the Kirtland's warbler.
*Note: The bird in the picture is a magnolia warbler, not a Kirtland's.