Since I was a little kid, I have always wanted to have a job working with animals. Of course, a lot of little kids want to have animals jobs, but most of them forget about it within a few years. When they are in second grade they want to be a veterinarian, and by the time they are in third grade they want to be a firefighter. With me, however, it was different. I knew a lot about what went into animal jobs. You see, my mother had an animal science job.
In a lot of ways, I was the envy of all of my classmates. I had all sorts of neat exotic animals around my house. There were many different kinds of snakes, iguanas, insects, and even a monkey. Yet it wasn't all fun. An animals job is hard work, as I knew from when I was very little. I would do a lot of animals jobs around the house. That meant that I had to clean their cages, take them out and exercise them, feed them, check up on them, and make sure they were in good health. Fortunately, my mom also let me do the fun part. She let me come along with her to animal science fairs and show them off.
I always assumed that I would get a job working with wildlife, but I never really thought what sort of animals jobs I wanted. Being an Animal science educator like my mom sounded pretty cool, but it wasn't quite right for me. When I found out about forest rangers in high school, however, I was hooked. I loved camping, and the fact that someone would pay me to hike around in the back woods was enough to blow my mind!
As I got older, however, I got more political. I began to think about other sorts of animals jobs. I knew that animal conservation was very important, as we often had classes on endangered species in school. I wanted to help protect the endangered species, but it wasn't until I was in high school that I learned that you could make a career out of this. A woman from a wildlife rescue organization came in and spoke to us about the rain forests. I was amazed by what she did and I asked for more information. She sort of took me under her wing, and by the time I graduated high school, I wanted to do what she did.
|
