I started and ended my career with hummingbirds. Freshmen year, I introduced myself to Professor Stuart Pimm and joined his research lab. I started a project gathering existing literature about all 350+ species of hummingbirds and their observed feeding behavior. In addition to this capstone and my Graduation with Distinction research, I hope to write and publish my findings as I graduate.

I took my hummingbird research into the field in 2018. As a Kennan Summer Fellow, I traveled to Ecuador and Colombia to gather my own data. I used a novel approach to study hummingbirds: camera traps. I had no idea if it would work when I arrived in South America. Thankfully it worked — better than I had anticipated! I gathered feeding data, often of reclusive hermit species, in three different field sites. Wherever I was stationed, I wrote reflections about environmental ethics to send back to Kenan. My reflections can be read here.

Here is a section of one of my weekly blog posts, comparing two of the reserves at which I created study sites:

This week, I became greatly interested in what I viewed as the business model of nature preservation. I wondered if there was justification for using a business model in the environmental sphere. How is money best spent? Which is the smarter and more effective technique? And what are the costs of each attitude? As far as becoming a powerful economic presence in the local community, having a business-oriented model is important. The director of La Mesenia can employ many of the community members with well-above-average wages. They are also able to purchase competitive land for high prices and spend the necessary money reforesting those areas. Jama-Coaque struggles to employ and pay local community members and is less of an economic presence in their community. La Mesenia’s economic power allows them to compete with local cattle or palm oil businesses that hold most of the political power. This allows them to shift money and attention towards conservation. Because people are able to create livelihoods out of ecotourism and conservation work, the local community has largely chosen to protect their beautiful biodiversity over less lucrative sources of money.

Before this trip, I naively thought everyone could have a strong appreciation for nature and a desire to protect it. What I hadn’t realized is that the area of work I am interested in is somewhat of a privilege. No matter how the people of the La Mesenia or Jama-Coaque communities felt about the plants and animals around them, they deforested land for themselves and their families to make a living. It wasn’t until conservation work became a lucrative option that people changed their attitudes. This to me was a bit of a shock. It snapped me out of the former expectations I had for people. I needed a bit of a reality check with my ideas. People first and foremost need security in their lives, and they will do anything that needs to be done to achieve it. No matter how important people think nature is, they are going to continue to deforest and destroy natural habitat for their own livelihoods unless financial incentive is created to do otherwise. This is one of the reasons why I think running a reserve like a business is a good idea.

On the other hand, I do think JCR is doing many things right. Despite not having the financial backers of La Mesenia, every single resource they have is being put towards purchasing land or pursuing the next conservation project. While there is less activity spent on finding donors and wooing them, more time is spent on the ground with the local community. Without great financial power, JCR develops strong relationships to the people in the local community by educating them about their mission and working with them in any opportunity. Each of the directors knows Spanish fluently and knows the names of the community members and their relationships. JCR is also free from the demands of big investors. Without receiving money that has an attached agenda, JCR spends what resources they have to their fullest capacity.

The research I was conducting and the bigger questions I was grappling with (conservation in the era of climate change) caught the attention of a New York Times writer. She visited the site with her daughter and accompanied me in the field for about two weeks. I was able to talk to her about conservation, sustainability, and business. Especially interesting were our conversations about being white foreigners from elite institutions traveling to less developed parts of the world to do “conservation work.” The subsequent article she published about my research can be found here .

When I left for my semester in Bhutan, I was contacted by the Duke Chronicle to summarize my experience from this summer as a highlight of undergraduate research. That can be read here.

Finally, another end product of my ongoing research is this video, filmed while I was at the Duke Marine Lab.

I hope to be able to update the progress of my hummingbird research with the exciting results and a publication over three years of work!

No matter where I traveled or how I was conducting “scientific” research, I remained concerned with the idea of community. I was acutely aware of where I was living and the people I was interacting with. I envision myself in the future, working in the field towards whatever goal, to always include and be a part of the community and the local environmental management scheme…