Posted September 26, 2023
It has been a great pleasure meeting some of you but in case we haven’t had the chance to be introduced I’d like to say hi! I’m Julia, the Wareham Land Trust’s TerraCorps service member for the 2023-24 term. I’m a Swansea native but I have been made a quick fan of beautiful Wareham. I am so excited to come aboard with the WLT and contribute to preserving these beautiful sites I am coming to know.
My background has mostly been in Animal Husbandry, both exotic and domestic. I’ve cared for animals as small as mice all the way to shadowing under the giraffe and elephant keepers at Roger Williams Park Zoo and there’s not much bigger than that unless a blue whale is somewhere in my future. I graduated college in 2019 (phew!) with a B.S. in Zoo and Wildlife Biology and found my most enjoyable classes were ecology or environmental biology where classmates and I piled onto a bus with nets, snake hooks, buckets, and chest waders and hiked out to some vernal pool in the Blue Ridge Mountains. While I had grown up catching frogs and tadpoles with the neighborhood kids in the overgrown retention pond at the end of my street and wandering the old dirt bike trails running through the woods, I had never really stopped to observe the nature around me. It was much more imperative to capture the flag or build a fort, or run a magic potion store on a particularly large pudding stone. These college classes renewed and reinvigorated my love of nature and gave me a window into a wider world of environmental pursuits. This time, when I caught tadpoles, I was building my foundation of ecological knowledge.
After college I came back home and found a job at a diagnostic laboratory where I ran COVID-19 tests before moving into their Special Toxicology lab. It’s been a wild few years but I am so glad to return to environmental work. The board members I have met, the executive director Elise, and the volunteers I have spoken to have all given me a warm welcome. I am looking forward to learning from this amazing community and giving my time and expertise in service of the WLT’s mission on several projects. One project I am excited to share is the continuation of the Bimonthly Trail Days program where I hope to be meeting many of you as we construct new amenities and maintain the trails.
Don’t hesitate to say hello, chat with me about your pets or a good book you’ve been reading recently. My friends know me as a walking encyclopedia and I’ve got a lot of hobbies so chances are we’ll find something in common.
Written by Julia Ledo, 23′-24′ TerraCorps Service Member