The Girl Who Lived With Wolves

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Oct. 3, 2013

Jackie Hulina was a master's student in the Michigan State University's Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability.

If I had a name-tag, it would say "Hello, My name is Jackie," but my friends like to call me "The Girl Who Lived With Wolves."

Oddly enough, 15 years ago I would have been called "The Girl Who is Too Afraid To Put Her Feet on the Ground Near Her Aunt's Dog." Since then, I've worked with all sorts of animals - penguins, porcupines, snakes, hamsters... and as my username suggests, wolves. Unfortunately, the period of my life where I
Hulina feeding wolveswas working as an animal care intern for wolves, lions, and bears (oh my!) has passed, but ever since I have been interested in conserving endangered species.

Read more about my internship at the Wildlife Science Center in Columbus, Minn., here.

Conservation is how I ended up at Michigan State University working for Jack Liu, also affectionately known on campus as "the panda guy." No, I'm not working with pandas. but there are a lot of endangered species out there, and they're not all big and fluffy.

I'm studying a species nick-named "the firebird." This species has been the poster-child of endangered species recovery success, so much so that it may be delisted in the next few years. I'm just starting on this journey, but I invite you to follow along as I discover not only how to become a researcher, but what it takes to save an endangered species, the Kirtland's warbler.

*Note: The bird in the picture is a magnolia warbler, not a Kirtland's.

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