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We’ve been quiet for the past few months. Part of that is due to the natural lull in our fieldwork in the winter. But things have also been pretty crazy for all of us. The country itself is incredibly uncertain. Conservation, science, and public lands are actively being dismantled at a terrifying rate. Many of our friends and loved ones have lost jobs or expect to soon.
On a personal note, I (Kayla) would like to give you a look into what it’s like to be a PhD student while doing my part for K9 Conservationists. I feel like a duck most days, paddling like mad beneath the surface. Professionally, the past few months have been full of wins: my first first-author peer reviewed paper alongside the teams at Action for Cheetahs in Kenya and the K9 Conservationists team was accepted for publication, I was featured on my favorite podcast Ologies, I met many friends/mentors/students for the first time at TWS in Baltimore and Noses for Nature, and I’ve presented on my work to Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Wolf Connection Podcast, and Natural Habitat Adventures.
Tomorrow I’m flying to Johannesburg, South Africa in a few days as one of the keynote speakers for the African Canines in Conservation Conference. I am THRILLED to meet so many friends, mentors, and students. It is an honor.
But first I have to survive finals week as a PhD student. And this is the really, really hard part! I’ve been working until 8:30pm every night this week to keep up on homework, reading, dog training, exercise, exam prep, conference logistics, and more. I’m in the classroom about 10 hours a week right now, plus another 10+ hours a week of reading and homework. I’ve been averaging about 100 pages a week of reading for my community ecology class (woof).
I’ve just finished my final projects for my classes. I expect to finish my take-home exam for community ecology today. I’ll refine my talks for the conference while in transit. I almost never leave things this last-minute, but there just hasn’t been time for me to get ahead. Once in Johannesburg, I’ll take my 500-level statistics exam at 7pm on zoom the night before the conference. Luckily my professor was willing to reschedule the remote exam so that I can take it *before* the conference rather than missing out on post-conference socialization.
I’m also recovering from a pretty big, scary injury: I got frostbite on New Year’s Eve. I nearly lost my toes after a mountaineering vacation went wrong. I was on crutches for a few weeks. My feet were incredibly painful and were so swollen that I couldn’t wear most of my shoes. It took over a month before I could wear normal shoes; 6 weeks before I could go for a long walk without pain. I’m thrilled to report that my feet seem poised to make a full recovery, but my body will need time to get back into shape.
Niffler is done with his five months of heartworm treatment and should be back to full activity very, very soon. We’re just waiting on lab results to confirm that his treatments worked. Managing his needs while keeping his heart rate down has NOT been easy, but there’s a light at the end of that tunnel. Barley, Niffler, and I are gearing up to head to Alaska in about 6 weeks. So fieldwork preparations are ramping up.
When I get back from Johannesburg, I’ll dive fully into dog training, physical conditioning for all 3 of us, genotyping last year’s wolf scats, cleaning our diet metabarcoding results, and refining our survey methods for the summer.
I knew that coming into a PhD program without giving up on K9 Conservationists would be HARD. This week is a particularly challenging one – partially due to the ambient stress from the state of the USA right now. I wouldn’t be surviving without the team around me. I’m incredibly grateful for all of the support I have that makes this possible. Heather, Rachel, Bernice, Jenna, volunteers, interns and the K9 Conservationists board members have been instrumental in keeping K9 Conservationists afloat while I do my best not to drown. My boyfriend has been helping me with meal prep so that I don’t starve. My academic advisor, labmates, and committee members have been flexible and supportive as I work on fieldwork preparations, data analysis, and labwork simultaneously.
Find your team and chase your callings together. We can’t do this alone. We really, really can’t.