Hey guys! My name is Al, and I am a third-year Forestry, Fisheries, and Wildlife major specializing in Wildlife Sciences. While my main career focus centers around urban wildlife and their interactions with human dimensions, especially large carnivores such as mountain lions (Puma concolor), my love for botany and anything living is not to be questioned. Budding from my first ever professional field work experience, my love for learning about wild plants blossomed while working as a seasonal invasive plant technician at the Cleveland Metroparks. Knowing mostly introduced plants, my excitement to learn more about native plants will only continue to sprout as I explore the amazing world of botany!
Below this block of text is my coat of arms, or rather, my depiction of Dr. Robert Klips in which I have filled his limbs with what my coat of arms should have had. The reason I used Dr. Klips as my illustration? Well, you could just say I am pretty immature, but I also aspire to be a professor, educator, and mentor as great as Dr. Klips is to his students! On the top left limb, you can see that I have drawn a camera as the symbol that represents who I am. I love capturing still images of wildlife and flowers, as well as anything I might just find pretty and want to embryoid forever as a digital photograph! Switching over to the other arm, you may notice that my motto reads: “It is what it is.” I like to live life like water, flowing with the stream and letting the current take me wherever. Sometimes life hits you with things that kinda suck, but you know what? It is what it is, and I just got to keep going and continue living life to its fullest, just like water. Moving diagonally down to the legs, you can see that I hail from Cleveland. The good ol’ 216 is where I call home. The Cleveland Metroparks, Lake Erie, downtown, sports, restaurants, anything Cleveland? That’s all me, and I am not ashamed of any of it. Lastly, as seen on the other leg, I am specializing in Wildlife Sciences within the Forestry, Fisheries, and Wildlife major. My career goals are to manage urban carnivores like mountain lions and research their impacts, and how they are impacted, on and by human dimensions and disturbances. However, my love for all species, invertebrates and Chordata alike, also includes plants and other organisms! I am super excited for this class and am even more excited to share it with the world!
