Over-educated and Underfunded
Weird, wacky and wonderful stories and sketches from biologists in the field.
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By Vincent DiringerBiology is a fairly broad section of science encompassing everything from the study of cells to cladistics as well as conservation and astronomy. Such a vast multitude of majors also entails a similarly large and varied array of pathways leading towards them. All Paths Lead to Biology is a series by the Broke Biologists delving into the stories of how biologists have arrived to where they are and what drives them. Science was an interest from a young age for Richard Frische, as the German-American biologist recalls, “I spent summers at the Kennedy Space Center, and at the time, the only TV programs in English in Germany were Discovery and National Geographic back when they had those amazing documentaries.” However, growing up with a penchant for science didn’t narrow down a singular pathway, “I was thinking of doing an undergraduate degree in biochem or maybe applied biology but I wasn’t sure about it, I was 19 and didn’t know what to do.” Still unsure about which field to focus his passion in, Richard turned to a different option: Germany’s Freiwilliges Ökologisches Jahr (FÖJ) or Voluntary Ecological Year. The FÖJ enables teenagers and young adults to spend a year working in a range of environmental and land management programs by helping them secure internships on both a national and international level. Intrigued at the prospect of working overseas within a scientific setting, Richard applied and sought to join a project in Chile, but ran into some administration issues that meant his year working a single internship turned into a year working in different settings. He spent some time at Huilo Huilo Biological Reserve as a tour guide, before working as a zookeeper at an endemic species conservation project, and later as a park ranger at the Villarrica National Park. The work was as diverse as it was enriching and it helped him choose a path, deciding to return to Germany and study a Bachelor’s in Biodiversity and Ecology at the University of Göttingen. Richard spent his undergraduate years further exploring new scientific disciplines and courses, hoping to learn as much as possible from multiple different fields, “I kind of struggled with staying on track, I was focusing on courses that seemed interesting and took too many random, nice looking courses,” he recalls with a snigger. Upon graduation, he sought to dip his toe in the job market, but his resume generated little interest, “The situation in Germany is that traditional biology like biochem funnels you towards lab work directly from bachelor level, while for ecological positions you need a masters or doctorate to get anywhere. I don’t think I’ve heard anyone say that my degree has been that useful apart from being a stepping stone towards something else.” Now 25 and working through an MSc. in Biodiversity & Sustainability at Leiden University, Richard has further narrowed his path, “My first masters internship focuses on ecotoxicology, and I’d like to make the second one on freshwater systems. In the future I’d like a stable job before going down the PhD route - I’m not sure what the specific topic would be, but it’ll involve freshwater and have some biodiversity elements.” Still working on his research throughout the pandemic-related closure of the university, Richard is also still feeding his addiction to gathering knowledge. Currently enrolled in several courses like biogeochemistry and an interdisciplinary honors course on human relationships with nature, Richard laughs, “I know I said I took too many different random courses during my bachelor’s, but I wouldn’t have made it where I am if I didn’t explore as many aspects of science as I did.” Have an interesting path into conservation biology? We'd love to share it! Leave us a message in the comments below.
By Vincent DiringerWorking in the field ensures you will have some remarkable encounters and unique experiences. From finding scorpions living in every crevice of our field camp to stumbling upon a newly discovered species of snail or spotting a hard to find endemic lizard, I have some fond wildlife memories. This one, however, was not such a wonderful moment... Its early March in Malaysia. We are being buffeted by the remnants of the monsoon and all the ferry terminals have had to close due to the adverse weather, unceremoniously postponing our plans to travel to our island basecamp with a group of now disappointed high school students. Keen to keep spirits high, the teachers give the students free time for the rest of the afternoon, allowing themselves and the biologists time to figure out the monsoon contingency plan. While between phone calls I start walking around the resort, aimlessly kicking rocks until I notice something out of the corner of my eye. Thirty meters away to my left, there is a thin stick jostling on the ground moving away from me. “Snake!” I yell enthusiastically, hoping to grab the attention of my colleagues, “What kind?” comes the response as I hear frantic footsteps behind me “I don’t know let me get closer, it looks like it could be a juvenile. As I get close enough to start identifying my new reptilian friend I realize that not only have my colleagues rushed over in excitement but so have several students and a biology teacher intrigued by my shrieking. The danger noodle is still slithering away, it is roughly thirty centimeters long, maybe two centimeters wide… jet black… rounded head... it has a noticeable hood… oh dear. Students are starting to congregate as the silky spitting cobra tries to leave as quickly as possible, the biology teacher turns to me, “Uhh... is that… what I think it is?” “Well, yes,” I say, trying to gloss over the fact I’d unwittingly drawn a crowd of pupils under our care to come see one of Asia’s most venomous snakes, “Come on guys lets leave this snake alone, nothing to see here, go back to your rooms, snakes aren’t that interesting anyways, lets leave this little guy alone.” Thankfully the students disperse fairly easily as we remind them that any wildlife they see or find must be treated with respect and that whatever it may be, they should seek us out to report what they encounter. The teacher shares a nervous giggle with the rest of us as we watch the slippery serpent disappear into a storm drain. We alert the resort staff to the presence of a juvenile spitting cobra on the grounds, to which they inform us that they’ve been dealing with several over the past few days, suggesting an adult female has made herself comfortable somewhere near and nested, resulting in a brood of adorable yet dangerous snake babies roaming the area. Feeling both excited and worried about the prospect of multiple tiny cobras staring at us from the shadows we decided to keep a watchful eye for the sneaky reptiles and reminded everyone to only use lit pathways when moving around. The weather would abate and we would leave the next day, making that my first and only encounter with an Equatorial Spitting Cobra (Naja sumatrana). I’ve now learnt to not loudly exclaim what I’ve spotted until I can accurately determine what it is. No students, biologists or snakes were hurt during these events.
By Ariana LoehrThe landscape of Sulawesi is supposed to be as beautiful as it is remote- not that I’d know, as our global stay home notice limits me to the grainy google streetview pictures. While I would have loved to visit this incredible island to provide my time and skills by volunteering at a conservation organization, this is no longer an option for me or any like minded young professionals passionate to pursue wildlife conservation. So what will happen to the organisations that are dependent on foreign volunteers and tourism for funding and assistance? We sat down with the volunteer coordinator for the Tasikoki Wildlife Rescue Center, Sylvia Gan, to find out more about what one organization is doing to stay afloat. Tasikoki Wildlife Rescue Center, located on the island of Sulawesi, Indonesia, is a rehabilitation center for wildlife that was bound for sale in the illegal wildlife trade. The center itself houses sun bears, slow lorises, Sulawesi macaques, tarsiers, cassowaries and many other birds that have all been rescued. In order to handle the large amount of care that these animals need, Tasikoki hosts up to 10 volunteers at a time during the peak season in June to August. Most of these volunteers are European tourists or students on their summer holidays, which they’ve given up to create enrichment food and activities for the animals in captivity. "We don't know how it's going to stress the animals out" During mid-February, Ms. Gan started to notice that there were no more bookings for volunteers, a sight which was fairly unusual for this time of year. Then, seemingly overnight, volunteers, school groups and tourist bookings virtually disappeared due to Covid-19 travel restrictions. Sylvia, a long term volunteer herself, was recommended to return to her home in Singapore as well. While these volunteers prove crucial to the everyday functioning of the conservation organization, her concern lies more deeply with the mental health of the animals in the long term, “if [the covid lockdown] goes on for a long time, like over a year or so, it’s really hard to measure because we don’t know how much it’s going to stress the animals out if they don’t get enough variability in their diets and environment”. More seriously, is the impact that the lack of tourism has on Tasikoki Wildlife Rescue Center whose main source of revenue comes from hosting school trips and tourists who come to see the vast grounds and unique animal inhabitants. “We’re not making money but we still need to pay the keepers, the wildlife still needs to eat every single day.” Sylvia worries, “Those costs don’t decrease”. Currently, many conservation organisations globally are facing similar concerns, with experts on panels for the Ape Alliance and One Stop Borneo debating the use of tourism to fund conservation during virtual events. While many conservationists argue for increased funding from governments, it is unlikely to become the reality in many biodiversity hotspots. Instead, Tasikoki has turned to the age-old tactic of crowdfunding to keep the organization afloat. They’ve raised enough money for wages and food for the animals for the next few months thanks to the strong connections of Tasikoki’s founder, Dr. Willie Smits. For now, Tasikoki is lucky to be able to continue its great work, but who knows how long that money will last or how long this global lockdown will last. Until we’re all free to travel again, many conservation groups will be struggling for lack of staff and funding. One of the greatest lessons that all conservation organizations can take away from this pandemic is that it helps to diversify your funding sources to ensure that your positive impact on nature is sustainable through every crisis. If you’d like to donate to help keep Tasikoki Wildlife Rescue Center around for the long haul, click the button below.
Don't be like Louis. Wear your wetshoes on the seashore.
By Vincent DiringerPrior to working in the field of conservation in South-East Asia, I had not been physically confronted with the amount of plastic waste and pollution that was floating around the world’s oceans. I had read the reports, seen the pictures and videos, but never seen it in person - so my first coastal cleanup really struck a chord. There was just so much trash. Shoes, nets, plastic bags, straws, bottles, barrels. These cleanups became somewhat cathartic, they were also often a wake-up call for those who came to help out, as one group of students found out by finding food packaging inscribed with a use-by date that revealed it was older than they were. For them, the thought that this one specific plastic item had spent more time floating in the ocean and degrading than it had spent being used was a sobering moment. The message was clear - plastics do not biodegrade. Unfortunately these types of experiences weren’t few and far between. We could spend over an hour collecting hundreds of kilos of plastic waste from a single beach, only to return several days later and have the same amount washed back onto shore, this time coated in oil. However, coasts weren’t the only ecosystems affected. While on diving or snorkelling trips, we would find large swathes of reef covered by ghost nets, or discover a jumbled mess of commercial fishing apparatus encrusted in barnacles floating just below the surface. The environmental damage that this plastic was causing was evident, and the need to address plastic pollution on a large scale never seemed more pressing. Plastics can break down into smaller microplastics which are then ingested by all living organisms in the ocean – that is if they aren’t swallowed whole by sea birds, turtles, whales and other large sea creatures. However, these microplastics don’t just affect the oceans. Food webs ensure that within any environment there is constant predation, this means that through a process called biomagnification, the amount of microplastics found in organisms increases the further you travel up the food chain – eventually reaching us. There are many new environmentally friendly options available to reduce your reliance on single-use appliances that generate more waste and harm than they do convenience. Make the smart choice when it comes to plastics and remember the Six Rs:
While I’m far away from the shores of South-East Asia nowadays, the experiences of those coastal cleanups have stuck with me - both physically and mentally. As a reminder of my first cleanup, I have kept one of the hundred commercial fishing weights that littered the beach that day. It now sits on my desk as a constant reminder as to why I’ve decided to dedicate my career to sustainability and the environment. There's no good way to respond to a dead cat in the field.
By Vincent DiringerLondon-2020 Being told to self-isolate and stay home doing nothing can be both a blessing and a curse. You can work on projects you’d put off, call friends you haven’t spoken to in a while, eat an entire pint of Ben & Jerry’s, or even pretend to be a caterpillar and cocoon yourself in a quilt while refusing to leave your bed until everything blows over. All of this seems eerily familiar as I recall my last experience in quarantine, and gear up to put my very professional quarantine survival skills to good use. Singapore-2018 Of all the colourful, interesting tropical diseases one can be infected with when wading through mangroves, hiking across volcanic islands through dense rainforest, and exploring leech-infested lowlands, hand, foot, and mouth disease (HFMD) is definitely not what you’d expect. After a colleague contracted the disease whilst out in the field in Malaysia, they consulted a local doctor who assured them that HFMD was not contagious and that they were safe to continue working. Unbeknownst to us, the nation had been grappling with an outbreak for six months, and that the local doctor may have received his degree in a cereal box. The incredibly virulent disease spread throughout the field camp and the decision was taken to immediately repatriate the infected parties to our base in Singapore. Upon our return we informed local health services, and locked ourselves in our studio. Management gave us masks, gloves, food, medication, and we were paid to stay away from everyone and everything for at least a week. So how do biologists pass the time while in various amounts of boredom, covered in blisters and lumped together in a studio apartment? Definitely a lot of intelligent discussions on climate change policy and debates on efficient conservation methods, and not just staring longingly outside windows and facetiming each other from across the room while waiting for the day’s third Deliveroo order. While our isolation was exacerbating our moderate insanity, we understood that it was in the best interest of the population at large for us to stay home and binge Netflix. While HFMD is fairly contagious, it tends to only have mild symptoms, but a small proportion of people can develop very dangerous complications that could lead to death. After a week of isolation and loss of symptoms, we were cleared to leave our prison home and interact with other less insane people. ***
As the world continues to fight through the COVID-19 outbreak, we are being urged to stay home to reduce the spread of the virus and therefore help reduce the strain on our respective healthcare services. While we deal with cabin fever and missing our friends and family, it certainly beats the alternative of being infected ourselves or infecting others. Take it from some broke biologists who spent (an admittedly short) time in quarantine, stay home! Work on your hobbies, check in with your friends and family, play video games and eat a pint of Ben & Jerry’s - we’ll be back outside in no time. By Vincent DiringerSedili Besar, Malaysia - 2018 What do you do when you are leading an intertidal exploration and come across a bloated, decomposing sea animal on the seashore? In the case of one biologist, the answer was to immediately begin handling it manually, while the others contented themselves with taking pictures and looking for any identifying markers that could help determine the species and its cause of death. The students looked on with a mixture of awe and disgust as four grown adults became increasingly excited at analyzing a dead and very smelly mystery specimen. Deciding to share their discovery with the other biologists on the trip, they shared the pictures and all grouped up to discuss the possibilities (while one was sent to go wash their hands incredibly thoroughly). A consensus was soon formed: the animal was indeed dead, it was a cetacean, possibly a juvenile, and handling a dead animal is gross (dang Sylvia what the hell). Dolphins weren’t a rare sight in the area, but this species’ physical traits were entirely at odds with what we were used to. Some of the marine biologists on staff went back and forth eliminating the obvious candidates: it wasn’t a dugong or a common dolphin, and its physiology wasn’t compatible with that of larger cetaceans. Soon, we were left with two distinct options, the Irrawaddy dolphin (Orcaella brevirostris) or the Indo-Pacific finless porpoise (Neophocaena phocaenoides). Both species are present - yet rare - in the waters off Peninsular Malaysia’s eastern coast. An endangered species, O. brevirostris’ (Irrawaddy dolphin) numbers are low with some ~7,000 individuals worldwide. At the time of writing this post (2020), there is still no accurate estimate of the population in peninsular Malaysia. Listed as vulnerable despite no clear population estimates, N. phocaeniodes (Indo-pacific finless porpoise) has been the subject of taxonomic uncertainty. Being able to correctly identify the remains as either of these species would make it a potentially one-of-a-kind find, but also a slightly depressing one. While opinion was split on the ID, cause of death was a lot simpler to identify, with several deep gouges on the animal’s back indicating a boat strike was most likely to have cut its life short. After several days of deliberation, we were still split on the identity of this mystery creature (#TeamPorpoise) and to settle the debate one of our biologists reached out to a contact at the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum in Singapore. Based off of the pictures we provided, the carcass was identified as that of an Irrawaddy dolphin, giving #TeamIrrawaddy a win, although #TeamPorpoise is still not convinced to this day. Fancy throwing your identifying hat in the ring? Have a look at some of our pictures and comment whether you are #TeamPorpoise, #TeamIrrawaddy or start your own if you think we completely botched the ID. References
Bay, K., Braulik, G., & Tuen, A. (2013). Population estimates and distribution patterns of Irrawaddy dolphins (Orcaella brevirostris) and indo-pacific finless porpoises (Neophocaena phocaenoides) in the Kuching Bay, Sarawak. In Raffles Bulletin of Zoology (Vol. 61). Mazlan, A. G., Zaidi, C. C., Wan-Lotfi, W. M., & Othman, H. R. (2005). On the current status of coastal marine biodiversity in Malaysia. In Indian Journal of Marine Sciences (Vol. 34). 2018 carcass pictures from Charles Downing “So wait, this is you job?” A somewhat incredulous sixteen year-old asked me, “Like, you get paid to do this?”
I turned around with a sly grin, “Well, yeah, you didn’t think I was waking up at 7am everyday to take you guys on hikes and teach you field methods just for fun did you?” Don't get me wrong, working in environmental education is fun. Not only are you working in a sector that enables you to teach students about how various biomes work and contribute to the planet’s wellbeing, but you are able to do so while being immersed in the thick of it, sometimes literally (and yes I mean mud and poo). Mix that work environment with thousands of students of all ages and backgrounds discovering coral reefs, rainforests and mangroves for the first time, and you have a recipe for some amazing quotes and memorable events. Welcome to the Broke Biologists! A website hosting stories from broke biologists living around the world and looking to share their experiences with other broke biologists, well, around the world. No one goes into science for the money, but what we lack in funds, we make up for in great stories and interesting scars. |
About the AuthorsThese stories come from several biologists working in the field around the globe. Archives
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