Page 8 - Tracking Tortoises: The Mission to Save a Galápagos Giant

Meet the toRTOise sCientisTs

STEPHEN BLAKE through the forest, hunting feral goats and pigs with his
Title: Coordinator of the father. When he graduated from school, he went to work
Galápagos Tortoise hunting goats as part of a project to eradicate, or get rid of
Movement Ecology them, on islands where they’d been introduced. The goats
Programme were threatening giant tortoises by competing with them
Education: Bachelor of for food. After that job was complete, Cabrera started
Science in Zoology from working for the Galápagos Tortoise Movement Ecology
University of London, Programme. Thanks to all the time he spent outdoors
Masters of Science in growing up, he knows the territory of the tortoises better
Resource Management, and than anyone.
PhD in Ecology from
University of Edinburgh SHARON L. DEEM

As a student, Steve wasn’t Title: Director of the
sure what career he wanted. Saint Louis Zoo
“Except that I didn’t fancy doing a normal job,” he says. So Institute for
he worked at a stable and as a zookeeper. Then he got a Conservation Medicine
job working with gorillas and, later, elephants in the Congo Education: Doctorate
Basin of Africa. Steve turned his attention to tortoises of Veterinary Medicine
after his wife, wildlife veterinarian Sharon Deem, took a from the VA/MD
job in the Galápagos Islands. That was back in 2007, and College of Veterinary
he’s been tracking tortoises Medicine and Zoo and
ever since. Wildlife Residency and
PhD in Veterinary
FREDDY CABRERA Epidemiology from the University of Florida, Diplomate of
the American College of Zoological Medicine
Title: Field researcher with
the Charles Darwin Sharon Deem grew up near the National Zoo in Washington,
Foundation DC. She used to skateboard through the zoo looking at the
pandas and other animals. At home, her bed was full of
Education: Studied biology stuffed animals, most with Band-Aids. Sharon always
in high school on Santa Cruz
wanted to be a veterinarian, and her work has taken her all
Freddy grew up on a farm in over the world. She met Steve in Africa when she was the
the Santa Cruz highlands and wildlife veterinarian in charge of immobilizing the elephants
spent his free time hiking he was studying.

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