Don’t keep your knowledge a secret

Within minutes of arriving at my family’s Thanksgiving dinner, my aunt and uncle were already asking me about my new job. I tried to keep my answer short and simple by telling them I study bats and wildfires, and leaving it at that. But that wasn’t enough for them. They prodded for more, so I told them in detail how I’m studying the effects that controlled burns in forests have on bats, which lead to more questions, especially about the burns. They wanted to know why forest managers would want to start fires on purpose when the Western US is already on fire half the year to start with. I stopped to think about it. The idea of controlled burns makes perfect sense to me, but I’ve also spent a good chunk of my life researching forests and I’ve been taught the benefits of fire in the ecosystem. However, most people haven’t spent years in college looking at trees, so I understood where the confusion came in. <a href="https://medium.com/the-island-conservation/dont-keep-your-knowledge-a-secret-3cd7f6319209">Read More</a>