Pete’s pictured on the left
Pete Havlik is our new Media and Marketing Intern. He had an interview with us last week as he was passing through Portland and we are very excited to have him on our team. Pete hails from Wisconsin and has a wide and varied history of field biology and non-profit experience.
After graduating with a BA in Environmental Studies and a minor in Social Justice Pete spent a summer in North Dakota as a crew leader on a botany team, a couple of seasons performing tissue sampling on cervids (mostly whitetail deer, see: chronic wasting disease), and in the last few years has focused on work with desert tortoises in the desert southwest. His field work with tortoises has included line distance sampling efforts, general health assessments, helping with a homing ability study, and performing construction mitigation activities.
Pete performing a health assesment on a desert tortoise
This year Pete has taken a lot of time to travel and expand his skill set. During this past year he has become more familiar with web development and is the current acting website administrator and an advisory board member for Wisconsin Partners in Amphibian and Reptile Conservation. Over the most recent summer Pete spent two months traveling through Ecuador, a portion of which he volunteered helping to document amphibian and reptile biodiversity at a research site in the western Amazon basin.
Conducting night inventory surveys in the Amazon
Pete is an avid promoter of conservation biology and through this internship hopes to expand his ability to assist in research and networking towards this end. He is also interested in wildlife photography and science based nature writing. Look for future blog posts detailing his internship experience and writing about PDXWildlife conservation efforts as well as related themes.
Reviewing pictures after a day hike in Ecuador
Help me welcome Pete to the team!
-Meg