Harvest Mice, 3-Legged Beavers, and Elephant Conflicts with Dylan Beckham

The Wild Life

Joining The Wild Life today is Dylan Beckham! She spent two years as a zookeeper caring for all sorts of exotics, including reptiles, invertebrates, fish, emus, wallabies, genets and Eurasian harvest mice. As a herpetology enthusiast, she was surprised to find it was the mice that stole her heart. This led to the development of her independent research project investigating their nesting behaviors in captivity, before ultimately leaving the zoo to pursue her passion for wildlife research. She managed to fit in an adventure to Canada, where she interned at a wildlife rehab facility, wrestled raccoons, and fell madly in love with a three-legged beaver! Now she's wading through nearly a hundred hours of harvest mouse data, while preparing to return to university for a top-up Bachelor's degree in September, where she'll be doing a research project on human-elephant conflict in Equatorial Guinea.

Whether you're fascinated by the world of zookeeping, curious about the nuances of data collection, or passionate about conservation, this episode is for you.

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Have questions, topic suggestions, or want to be on the show? Email me at [email protected] or dm me on Instagram or TikTok @devonthenatureguy

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