B.S. in Biological Sciences with minor in Wildlife Science from North Carolina State University
HOMETOWN:
Ayden, North Carolina
"THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS A TYPICAL DAY...During breeding season we'll candle all the eggs, enter all the data in the spreadsheet, and keep very detailed records of everything we see every day when we candle. The husbandry aspect is much less time-consuming in the winter time. In the winter, it's a lot of cleaning and routine maintenance. Like this past winter, we put up bird spikes to keep away ravens and magpies that like to sit on the walls."
Nathan tells how and why he got his start working with Steller's eiders. (0:58)
I’m the eider research aviculturist. I help with setting up pairs, setting up nest sites, promoting breeding behaviors and a lot of the incubation practices that we use.
I have raised birds since I was a teenager with my father. My senior year of college I did an internship with Sylvan Heights Waterfowl Center in Scotland Neck, North Carolina. I worked with over 100 different species of waterfowl there but the Steller's are one of the few species I hadn’t worked with and I really wanted to get some experience with them, and this job presented itself and I was lucky enough to get it and I have been enjoying working with them ever since.
They’re really not like any of the other eiders. The fact that they’re declining so rapidly is a motivating factor for me to jump on board with the eider team to try and help save them and reintroduce them to the wild.