Career with animals, yes, but what?

As I look into possible careers I can go into, one that catches my eye is veterinary pathology.  Veterinary pathology is the study of diagnosing diseases in animals by examining bodily fluids and tissues.  Diagnosing these diseases and finding cures is extremely helpful for animals.  Many diseases that are transmitted between species can be controlled and possibly eliminated thanks to the efforts of pathologists.  This can help solve many problems that end up killing animals when there is unnatural interaction between species due to humans.  For example, in parts of Africa, unnatural interaction between cattle and wild ungulates causes the passing of diseases.  When the wild animals pass the disease to the cattle, the farmers take it upon themselves to "exterminate the pests killing their herds." When cattle pass the diseases to the wild animals, many wild species are threatened and often wiped out because the diseases are totally foreign to their immune systems.  With pathologists' work, however, many of these diseases can be eradicated.  Primate and human shared diseases can also be treated and minimized with pathology.  In many countries, diseases caused by eating bushmeat kills many people.  If more people take up animal pathology, diseases like these can be explained and cured.  

While there are many benefits to taking up veterinary pathology, including benefits to health of animals and humans and a hefty paycheck of an average $170,000 a year, I don't know how right veterinary pathology is for me.  For one thing, I wouldn't be able to interact with animals on a day to day basis the way I want to.  The animals I would be studying would be numbers to me; getting attached to them would be disapproved of because they are part of labs and experiments and patients, subjects that we are studying.  Also, microbiology has never been a strong suit for me. In AP Biology I understand everything about macrobiology and evolution and things like that, but when it comes to intercellular things, I need help understanding what's going on. 

So while veterinary pathology is a very possible career choice for me, I will definitely keep number one on my list of careers open for suggestions. 

Recently I came across an article that reminded me of a situation that occurred last year:

http://www.bizjournals.com/dayton/blog/morning_call/2012/10/one-year-after-exotic-animals-escape.html

A man in Ohio who owned many exotic animals decided to let them all loose one day before committing suicide.  The animals wandered through the suburban neighborhoods, and 50 of the 56 escaped animals were shot by authorities to prevent civilian injury.  The animals killed included 18 Bengal tigers, 17 lions, 6 black bears, 3 mountain lions, 2 grizzly bears, a baboon, and 2 wolves.  The number of animals killed by authorities, most being endangered animals, angered me.  In the first place, the man should not have even been allowed to own the animals.  Ohio laws on exotic animals made it easier for people to own a tiger than a squirrel.  I was upset at the number of dead animals, especially because I think that authorities should have tranquilized the animals before shooting them, and at least try to save them.  I understand they presented a threat to the people, but as long as the citizens stayed in their homes, they would be safe.  This article, posted  a year after that incident, talked about new laws that have been passed in Ohio that restrict the buying and selling of exotic animals in the state.  It makes me happy to know that people are doing things in the government to prevent such incidents from happening again.  

Another thing I have a major issue with is sport hunting.  Though I don't generally like hunting and eating the catch, since there is plenty of meat in supermarkets that gets wasted every day because it isn't bought, at least hunting and eating the meat is better than hunting and keeping the parts for trophies and nothing else.  Images such as the ones below horrify me, because people cause the deaths of innocent animals with families and lives of their own for pure pleasure.  I find that idea barbaric.  It is one thing to kill an animal and at least eat its meat, like many deer hunters do, but another totally different thing to kill an animal merely to hang its head on a wall of trophy heads.  I hope to do something to end the reckless allowance of sport hunting when I grow up.  The animals usually don't even have a chance against the long range guns and technology hunters are given.  Often they have babies that they never get home to, family groups they help sustain.  Personally, as a vegetarian from a whole family of vegetarians, I don't see the necessity to eating meat, however, I in no way condemn it.  I just believe that meat should be respected the way Native Americans respected it.  The animals should be respected, nothing should be wasted, and it must be understood that in order to sustain your life you had to take another.  The way the settlers in the United States treated bison, killing millions so their carcasses piled up in mounds 15 times the height of a human disgusts me. 

 

http://www.alaskatrophyadventures.com/hunt04.htm

http://lionexploitation.wordpress.com/canned-lion-hunting/legal-status-in-south-africa/

 entire tourist families would pose next to dead giraffes in several national parks in Africa in order to take home pictures of themselves next to the "trophy giraffes" they brought down. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2089806/The-giraffe-hunters-pay-10-000-shoot-gentle-giants-guns-bows-sport.html

Volunteering

Animals have always been a passion for me, but I have always felt the need to know if it would make a good career choice for me. Many people have told me not to make my passion a career, because sometimes it turns your passion into a job, that you have no choice but to adhere to.  They say a passion should remain as only a source of fun.  To figure out for myself if working with animals as a job choice was right for me, I volunteer with animals.  My internship at Happy Hollow was more of a job than a carefree volunteering experience; there were limited spaces, interviews, and many responsibilities that came with the job.  And though many people told me that I may not find animal careers as fun and interesting, I never felt bored while working.  Even if I worked with the same animals every day, I discovered something new.  I was given the opportunity to hold and interact with many animals I didn't think I'd ever get to meet.  I've met lemurs, wallabies, alligators, and meerkats while working.
In the future, perhaps after I graduate high school, I would like to spend a couple months in Africa or India volunteering with animals.  One amazing opportunity allows for volunteers to care for orphaned wildlife.  The project, at Noah's Ark Wildlife Center, is located in Namibia, Africa: http://www.enkosiniecoexperience.com/NoahsArk.htm and seems amazing.  Though it seems as if it isn't as much of a help to the animal populations as a whole, (since you pay a lot of money to bottlefeed baby animals, its more of a fun vacation) it's still a good place to start.  I want to be able to get my hands dirty and involved in taking care of animals in order to gain a deeper personal connection with them.  Also, established centers such as the one above are good places to start, since I am used to a comfortable, mostly disease-free lifestyle with many luxuries, and such centers have at least some of the luxuries and protect better against disease (since they are geared more toward foreign visitors).
I would also look into volunteering in India.  I go every other year anyway to visit family, and I have always been fascinated with the wildlife of India.  The Gir Forest especially, the only place on earth where lions, tigers, and leopards all coexist in the wild, is a place of interest.  And obviously, since it is where I am from, I have a natural connection to the country.
Currently, I volunteer at Nike Animal Rescue Foundation, where I look after kittens and bottlefeed and socialize them when necessary and the German Shepherd Rescue.
I plan to do an internship at the Silicon Valley Wildlife Center, which would give me a chance to work with local wildlife.  

Overview of my Passion

Ever since I was a little kid I knew I wanted to work with animals when I grew up.  I had a growing obsession that hasn't yet ended.  Since I was two years old, I begged my parents for every type of pet a kid could have.  I rode horses and learned about every breed of dog there is to know.  I kept my own encyclopedia of animal species and took delight in stumping my parents with quizzes on obscure animals. Every city, country, and continent we traveled to I dragged my parents to the local zoo.  How they put up with me, I don't know.  Anyway, to this day I find ways to surround me with animals.  Over the summer I did an internship at Happy Hollow Zoo, where I had the opportunity to work with animals I would never have thought of working with before.  When I volunteered there, I confirmed within myself that I really did want to work with animals.  It made me happy and look forward to getting up in the morning and going to work.
However certain I am that I want to work with animals, I have never been sure exactly what I wanted to do.  I have gone between veterinary sciences, zoology, environmentalism & conservation, and wildlife biology, documentation, and photography, and I am still uncertain which field I want to specialize in.  It has always been my dream to travel the world and observe wild animals, and I have always been more interested in wild animals than in domestic animals.  This means that even though veterinary science would be the most profitable or stable job out of the jobs listed above, I would prefer a job with wild animals.  They intrigue me due to the fact that their lives are not completely shaped by humans, and they are moving parts of nature and its beauty.  I don't mean to sound like a tree-hugger here, though I probably really am one, but there is mystery and beauty to be found in all parts of nature, and to me, animals are a huge aspect to the beauty of it.  This blog will probably end up being full of me saying things like this, along with interesting articles I find and my responses, or just my thoughts.  Overall I hope to share some of my love of nature and my hope for a future with animals with the rest of the world, or anyone who takes the time to read parts of the jumbled mess I call my mind. :)