Geoff, Author at Field Tech Forum

Ancient Drama – The Emotional Power of Stargazing

In my companion article to this piece, I wrote that one of the top reasons that stargazing is the ultimate outdoor pursuit is because of the real world drama played out in the nightly motions of the stars and other celestial objects. A recent night of stargazing which I recently enjoyed in the remote and therefore star-happy location of Big Bend National Park serves as an illustrative example. I reserved a backcountry campsite sight unseen; as I set up my tent and went out for a day hike, I didn’t think much about the mountainous ridge to the east, especially not as a backdrop for my evening entertainment of stargazing. Indeed, as I made my post-hike dinner, I was preoccupied with the action in the west and the (apparent) motion of only one star — the long and thrilling opening act represented by the sunset. The World’s Best Opening Act A description of the subtle but inexorable changes in the sky along with the appearance of the most vivid colors on the earthbound objects of the desert landscape during the progression of the sunset merit their own article, but it’s not my intention for this to be another ode to the majestic sunset. From the perspective of the stargazer, the hour and a half or so between the final disappearance of the sun and the onset of full darkness is maddeningly slow. It’s easy to get impatient as seems like it will never get fully dark. But patience is rewarded as the evening’s first stars (and planets) appear. If we can think of the evening’s celestial events as a stage drama, the transition from twilight to night is like the slowest imaginable raising of a curtain. But instead of taking the stage from the wings with dramatic entrances, the players participating in the first act are already there, slowly coming into view one by one as the stage lights brighten just enough to reveal their silhouettes, until they finally appear in full view and the proper action can begin. Act I – Setting the Stage As I geared up for the evening and turned my gaze upward, I felt a brief twinge of regret at having left my planisphere at home, forcing myself to rely on my somewhat rusty knowledge of the stars’ positions. But in a way, this made it more fun. Eventually I’d be able to identify the major constellations, but I wouldn’t quite know what they were until most of their stars were in sight. As the constellations began to take shape, Perseus and the Pleiades were prominently showing several degrees above the ridge line, and the wedge of Taurus with its brightest red star Aldebaran was distinctly visible along with its neighboring constellation Auriga, its main star Capella shining brightly as well. It was clear that this was destined to be a winter star extravaganza. Looking to the west trailing the setting sun, the three stars of the summer triangle were visible although it was clear that Altair would soon disappear below the horizon while Deneb, the smear of the Milky Way running through it, and the rest of the constellation Cygnus would be sticking around for a little longer. A different polygon, the Winter Hexagon would be my focus tonight; it’s shear massiveness makes it an easy viewing target. Imposing in its bulk, it takes up one third of the sky when fully visible. With two of its six stars already on the stage, the Hexagon was well on its way reaching this stage of completion although it would take a few hours for the other four corners to show themselves. Luckily, time was something I had plenty of; after a long day of backpacking and hiking including an ascent of the park’s highest peak, I was more than happy to lie supine in my sleeping bag and remain mostly motionless while the counterclockwise pinwheel rotation of everything around the North Star played out above me. When a Ridge is a Stage Several features of the ridge turned out to play critical roles in shaping the evening’s drama, none more than a deeply vertical V-shaped notch. At evening’s beginning, a bright star occupied the space within the notch, but as an isolated star, I didn’t think much of it. It was only after several minutes when another bright star rose closely behind it through the middle of the V that I realized that what I was seeing was Orion’s belt, oriented perpendicular to the ridge. Soon, Betelgeuse and Rigel came into sight, flanking the belt with perfect symmetry like the tips of a gyroscope’s central axis. With Rigel’s appearance, half of the Hexagon was in sight. Next to make its way through the notch was the prominent star cluster I’ve always thought of as the hilt of Orion’s belt, but which is more commonly known as Orion’s sword. Along with the Collinder 69 cluster (Orion’s head) and the Pleiades, it was one of three prominent star clusters easily visible in a small patch of sky, a nice treat because if stars are great, having a whole cluster of them is even greater. Finally, the third star of the belt made its way up through the notch, and I watched intently from its first appearance until it completely cleared the ridge, amazed as always by the speed at which celestial objects appear to move past a fixed reference point on the horizon. Familiar Friends A few stars were visible to the left of the hunter, but lacking my handy reference, I couldn’t place what they were. With the main stars of Orion in sight, I turned my attention to other features. Normally, Taurus’s neighbor in the zodiac, Aries, doesn’t offer much of interest with its slant of three stars appearing more or less like a celestial hockey stick; but tonight Jupiter was shining brightly beside it, making me regret I’d left my binoculars behind. Undoubtedly at least two of Jupiter’s brightest moons, among my favorite

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8 Reasons Why Stargazing is the Ultimate Outdoor Pursuit

Blog / Geoff

When we hear the phrase “outdoor activity,” images of someone lugging a backpack deep into a remote forest or furiously paddling through a series of churning rapids likely fill our minds. Activities like these appeal to us for being exhilarating and challenging ways to get us in touch with our natural surroundings while improving our health through exercise. Perhaps ironically, we can become deeply acquainted with much more distant surroundings without even taking a step by partaking in an outdoor activity which can’t be paralleled for its ability to spark the imagination and engage the mind. One which won’t leave you with calf cramps or sore shoulders. Read on to see the reasons why the simple act of looking up into the night sky can be as enjoyable as any of the more active outdoor pursuits and why you should consider adding stargazing to your list of outdoor hobbies in 2024. 1: Low Cost An avid rock climber I know told me about a misadventure which ended with his gear bag falling over a cliff. The punchline of the story was that he lost $5,000 worth of gear when that bag careened into the abyss at whose bottom it likely remains to this day. While there are many ways to react to this story, my takeaway is that rock climbing is an activity which simply isn’t accessible to a sizeable part of the population. Other gear-heavy outdoor activities can be exclusive because of these prohibitive entry costs. Not so with stargazing. The only equipment required to get started is a planisphere (the fancy name for those twirly star wheels with all of the constellations on them) and a piece of red cellophane to put over a flashlight. Cost: less than $10. A more advanced version of stargazing requires a headlamp with a red light setting and a basic pair of 8x binoculars. The total cost is still around $100. While this may still be a lot for some people, it’s still manageable and something one could save up for without causing a major financial burden. 2: Few Physical Barriers I’m a big proponent of exercise, and nothing brings me more joy than trudging up and down a steep mountain or walking in a natural place with every available second of daylight. But any number of challenges prevent many people from participating in physically demanding activities. While there are physical conditions which may prevent people from looking at the night sky, stargazing is still something that’s available to most of us and a pastime we can easily share with others, especially those who might like the idea of the outdoors but are less enthusiastic about experiencing weather extremes, swarms of biting insects, and nights spent in places without a bathroom in sight. 3: Real World Drama Drama, you say? What can be dramatic about a bunch of blobs of gas that haven’t moved (or barely moved) in hundreds of millions of years? With a bit of knowledge about the night sky, some imagination, and a great viewing spot, the nightly motion of the stars can make for a captivating drama rivaling anything shown on a screen. The excitement generated by one of these shows can be so intense that a proper description merits its own post – check out the companion to this article for an example of how this type of drama can play out. The short version is that like a stage show, familiar players reveal themselves and make their entrances and exits; unexpected cameos from meteorites, satellites, or even the International Space Station can spice things up and keep you engaged through a series of dramatic reveals, slow burns, and emotional reunions. Factor in some uncommon events like eclipses, planetary conjunctions, rare glimpses of distant objects, and comet appearances, and the excitement heightens. 4: A Slower Pastime Dramatic as it may be, the nightly rotation of the stars lacks the deliberately accelerated pace of some other forms of modern entertainment. But that’s OK. While technologies which make things faster can make our lives more convenient, our cultural obsession with speed imparts a tinge of the frantic to all of our activities and somehow our speed-boosting technologies fail to alleviate the sense of being rushed and struggling to keep up. As these technologies play an increasingly more prominent role in our lives, we risk losing the ability to slow down and have our attention held by more leisurely but equally rewarding pursuits. A night of stargazing can serve as a counterbalance to the ever-increasing pace of life and give us a chance to see that slower can in fact be better. 5: Learn About the World Around You (and Beyond) Have you ever wondered why the moon is out during the day sometimes? Or what’s the deal with the seasons anyway? What do north and south actually mean? Is a shooting star really a star? And what the heck really is a solstice or an equinox? These are the types of questions whose answers will start to fall into place as you begin your journey as a stargazer. Ultimately, obtaining those answers means learning about our position in the universe. You’ll learn about how the Earth, sun, and moon interact with each other, not to mention many other objects in the solar system. You’ll learn why there aren’t two eclipses every month and why the constellations of the zodiac are significant in astronomy, along with so much more about our physical universe and the objects within it like asteroids, galaxies, and nebulae. 6: Gateway to Knowledge The distinctions between the various branches of science are largely artificial. As a biology teacher, I’m familiar with the perhaps counterintuitive idea that the first lessons in biology are actually overviews of chemistry. At its core, science is a unified whole which describes the actions and interactions of matter in the universe. Once you start to get into stargazing and develop an interest in space, you’ll find yourself picking up knowledge about

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The Future of Field Techs: Race, Class, and Inclusion

Blog / Geoff

While I spent many years as a seasonal wildlife biology technician, my more recent experience has been as an academic. While I feel that the life of a field tech better represents who I am, it’s hard to totally take the academic out of me. The following reads as much like a research paper as it does like a blog post; this is because I feel it’s important to provide adeqaute context for the story I’m telling here which relates to the stories not being told – those of minority field techs. In this post, I bring in scholarly research to help explain the myriad reasons why minority representation is so lacking among biology field technicians. Note: this post references interviews I conducted while visiting several field biology crews in the US. As the continuing concerns of habitat loss and decreased funding for scientific research loom largest among the threats to the practice of biology, questions related to the future of field biology technicians arise. Will there continue to be a need for a nomadic seasonal workforce in biology? If so, what will the next generation of field techs look like? Will it be similar to the current one? Despite the threats mentioned before and rapid developments in technologies which may automate some tasks traditionally carried out by field techs, the demand for these workers doesn’t seem to be slowing down quite yet. For example, 91 positions were posted on the Texas A&M job board on April 25, 2023 by entities including federal and state wildlife agencies, divisions of the military, public universities, non-profit organizations, environmental consultants, and commercial laboratories. But what about the supply side of the equation? Which is to say, will (primarily young) people continue to want to take low-paying seasonal jobs and live an unglamorous and unstable life, one which limits their ability to participate in social media and binge watch streaming content? One could argue that those who would rather watch an entire season of a show in a single day or weekend (such as the hundreds of thousands who watched the entirety of Stranger Things’ 4th season on Netflix in this manner) or would rather scroll through Instagram or TikTok for hours at a time may represent a segment of society that wouldn’t produce field techs. But what about those who would want to and be physically capable of doing so but would be prevented from doing so by forces beyond their control? Barriers of Race and Class Race and economic status serve as barriers preventing individuals from replenishing the ranks of field techs who lose interest in the lifestyle or can no longer handle the physical or mental challenges. While issues of class and race are impossible to separate cleanly, I’ll focus on class more broadly first before looking at the thornier issue of race. An obvious economic barrier is created by the “entry costs” to becoming a field tech which can be prohibitive; this includes at least a full complement of outdoor clothing and gear and most likely a reliable form of transportation as well. Jenny McKee of Audubon Magazine cited a 2015 study (Fournier and Bond) which found that about a third of jobs posted on two major job boards were unpaid or offered less than $300 per month stipends. Jensen (2021) conducted a review of a sample of postings on Texas A&M and other field biology job boards and determined that the hourly pay among paid positions in the sample was $10.48, below minimum wage in half of US states. While having minimal expenses and thrifty living allow some field techs to have positive cash flow while working field jobs, assistance from others in their lives (such as being on a parent’s health insurance plan or using their car) is a big part of making this possible. Without an economic safety net, life as a field tech would be difficult to manage, and this doesn’t account for potentially large expenses such as car repairs or medical bills for those without high quality health insurance. The term “declining middle class” has become a catchphrase of sorts, but statistics support the contention that the cost of living is rising in relation to income for a large segment of American society. The Pew Research Center reported that 50% of American households in 2021 are classified as middle class, down from 61% fifty years earlier; however, the standard definition of middle class includes household incomes as low as $47,189. Meanwhile, the percentage of American households below middle class increased from 25% to 29% and the aggregate income earned by the middle class was reduced from 62% to 42% in this same time span. Reduced savings and increased credit card debt accompany these growing financial hardships. While the benefits of connection to nature are well-documented (Hartig et al 2014, Lee et al 2022), participating in the potentially expensive pursuit of wildlife watching let alone following a career path as a seasonal field tech can easily be regarded as frivolous and simply unfeasible given these economic realities. Indeed, the change in neighborhood composition which mirrors the overall economic status of its inhabitants is likely to reduce the connection to nature for this shrinking middle and growing lower class. Using Nashville as a case study reflective of national trends, the New York Times reported that the percentage of families living in middle class neighborhoods has shrunk. A study by the Brookings Institution mirrors these findings, reporting that the percentage of middle-income neighborhoods in metropolitan areas declined from 58% to 41% from 1970-2000. Low-income neighborhoods are less likely to have green spaces which would serve as locations where children can develop a connection to nature and wildlife, an important predictor of becoming a biologist. All of this suggests that the available pool of future field technicians is shrinking simply as a result of prevailing economic trends. While socioeconomic status has a major effect on who’s likely to become a field tech, my observations led me to

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Second Chances

Uncategorized / Geoff

The following is an excerpt from my reflections on a conversation I recorded while traveling through the US documenting the work and personal stories of wildlife biology technicians. It centers on the dramatic events which convinced Mark Steele, a former field tech, to return to a life as a seasonal technician after working for several years at a remarkably ordinary corporate job. The circumstances which resulted in Mark returning to fieldwork allowed him to appreciate the unusual but rewarding lifestyle more consciously and not to take it for granted. They also gave him a greater capacity to endure the hardships of the work after choosing to alter the course of his life in such a deliberate manner and the knowledge of what he was leaving behind so fresh in his mind. When we join the story, Mark is explaining to me what originally motivated him to settle down in Boulder, Colorado after his first stint as a wildlife biology technician. Rebirth Through Death “…I thought it would be interesting to try having friends and relationships. I had never done any of that as an adult, and I wanted to see what it was like. Being on the road and working field jobs for a couple months at a time made it easy to just avoid all of that. So I got a more serious job and before I knew it, I was living a totally different life. Nine to five, regular job. It all just kind of happened.” “So what made you get back into doing fieldwork?” “It turns out I wasn’t really ready for any of it. Jobs, relationships. I was so used to living one day at a time and not making any plans that I just lost sight of what I was doing. I thought I’d stay in Boulder for six months; it ended up being closer to six years.” “But here you are again. What made you decide to leave for good?” “I saw a man die,” he says evenly while lifting his gaze to meet mine. I can’t help but smiling despite his grave tone and what he’d just said. “I’m going to need a little more explanation on that,” I reply. He draws a deep breath. “Well it’s a pretty long story.” “That’s fine, I get paid by the word.” “Really?” “No.” He laughs. “But that’s what I’m here to learn about. I don’t care about the length as long as it’s interesting. I’ll edit out the boring parts if there are any. Or my editor will.” Branches and Snowflakes in the Window “Well I found it interesting, a pretty out of the ordinary kind of experience.” He pauses and I allow him some time to think about where to begin. “OK, well a bit of background first. I was working for a third-party logistics provider.” “Meaning what exactly?” “I basically arranged freight shipments. Told the carrier where to go and when to go there. Typical corporate job, corporate culture, corporate language. I got really obsessed with money which was totally not anything I’d ever cared about. You just get caught up in it, it’s insidious and you don’t realize it’s happening. I started off working as a cashier in a store, living with a bunch of roommates; you see the managers and then sometimes the big corporate guys come in and especially when you’re young, it’s hard to ignore the differences between them and you. They project this air of confidence and wealth, having made it and being totally comfortable while you’re just scraping by, having to agonize over every little thing you buy, can you afford it or not or what are you going to have to sacrifice to buy this thing. You feel like you need to have a bunch of money to make it and to have people like you. “Anyway, the thing about this job is that it was a regular desk job, but they had us working in a warehouse that they’d converted into office space. There’s no windows. No source of natural light at all, except there was this one little circular window at the top of the wall opposite me that was like twenty feet off the ground. It’s like the porthole in a ship. All I can see is one tree branch and some little branchlets. That’s it. When it’s windy I can see it bobbing up and down,” he lifts his arm up and down to demonstrate, “and if it’s snowing I can see the snow falling past the window.” “And you said you’d been living outside right before you moved there.” “That’s right, I had, but that just shows you how easy it is to get sucked into something.” In this way, the extreme adaptability required of field techs cuts both ways and allows people like Mark to get used to something that’s obviously unhealthy and not right for them. “You don’t know how you got there,” he continues. “Of course this job sucked and was stressful. It started off OK, but you know how it is, you’re the golden boy until you slip up once and then you’re on their bad side and you get treated like crap. Power trips, middle managers needing someone to squash. I felt knots in my stomach every day. On top of all that, the company served no useful function.” “You mean like benefiting society in some way?” “No, not even that. And it definitely wasn’t, but for some companies you could at least say it’s ‘helping to turn the wheels of commerce,’” he says this last part in an obviously ironic fashion, wide-eyed and breathy, spreading his hands with palms pointed up and facing forward, “or you know, contributing to the economy, something useful for someone. But it wasn’t anything like that. It was just a middleman in a sea of middlemen. Really we mostly just got in the way and added red tape. So it’s not like I could feel good about anything I

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Dukes of Washakie

Uncategorized / Geoff

It was my first week as a field tech, and I’d just been caught trespassing by a landowner in Wyoming. My supervisor offered me the opportunity to put in some extra work by matching up printouts of aerial photos with what was actually on the ground, a process called “ground truthing.” The idea was that for each polygon on the photo, I’d be able to provide detail on what it actually was — perhaps an alfalfa field or a fallow pasture. I wanted to demonstrate my work ethic because recommendations from previous supervisors are essential in getting work as a field tech, and more practically, I had nothing else to do to fill the time. I was doing bird surveys in the early morning and was back at my remotely located camper and done with work by 11AM. So why not drive around a bit to kill some time and show my eagerness to help the project while I was at it? NO TRESPASSING! REALLY! I navigated to the location shown on the printout and found myself at a gate marked with a “No Trespassing” sign. I hesitated. Hmm, I thought, I’m not really trespassing, I’m just going in for a closer look, I’m just doing what I was asked, I’ll just pop in for a few minutes and be on my way. And pop in I did. Big mistake! I had been a field tech for only a few days, and I’d already violated what is unanimously known to be the number one rule of the trade – DON’T TRESPASS! I was inexperienced and I exercised poor judgement; my major miscalculation (the first of the afternoon) put my job — and maybe more — at risk. The stakes were high and my judgment was clouded because this was the job that was going to deliver my salvation from a lifetime of corporate drudgery. I’d staked my future on this job paroling me from a life sentence of imprisonment within a cubicle with no view of the outside world — a cursed, synthetic existence with the sun replaced by tubular fluorescent lights with their subtle but incessant hum and trees replaced by plastic potted plants. The landowner was in a truck, I was in a truck. He was a farmer in Wyoming, my truck had federal government license plates. I thought that this fact would help my case, make me seem more official and show that my presence was related to some valid, scientific business. Another critical rule I failed to follow: know the culture where you’re working. If it’s one thing that Wyoming farmers and ranchers don’t like, it’s the specter of government overreach. Maybe it would have been worse if I’d had a red license plate with a hammer and sickle, but then again maybe not. NO WAVE? NO GOOD! I was oblivious to this, so I did as I’d been instructed to do when encountering other motorists in the field — I waved at him. He didn’t wave back. Even as the greenest field tech working in America at the time, I knew right then that I was in trouble. Taking stock of my predicament, I could tell that the landowner had positioned his vehicle with the intention of blocking off the narrow dirt road where our trucks stood. But he’d inadvertently left just enough room for me to squeeze my truck between his back bumper and a fence. During extreme situations, your mind races and you only have a few seconds or less to make a decision. Was I going to be arrested? Shot? Should I try to explain the situation and how I ended up on the property? My heart and my mind were going into overdrive, and I couldn’t pull a single clear thought out of the jumble of swirling fears and scenarios playing out in ultra high speed. I’m not proud of what I did next, but all I can say in my defense is that I didn’t have time to consider the ethical implications of my choice. He left me an escape route and I took it. Then the chase was on. THE CHASE I had a head start because the landowner had to turn around and probably wasn’t expecting me to take my audacious course of action. I rumbled along the dirt road and saw that he was giving chase — running away wouldn’t be as easy as I’d hoped. The pursuit kicked into high gear when I made the transition to the paved county road by bouncing over a small bump, causing all four tires to briefly lose contact with the ground in what felt to me like a slow motion flight from the Dukes of Hazzard. As I recovered from the rough landing which bounced me around in the driver’s seat, I was in the thick of my first (but not last) high speed pickup truck chase. There was no soundtrack of banjo music or upbeat electronica as I sped off through the agricultural expanse of Washakie County with my pursuer still visible in my rearview mirror. Flooring it in a 15-year-old Ford F-150 doesn’t result in quite the same electrifying thrill as the same action might in a Ferrari or even a Toyota Camry, but I felt the rush of adrenaline just the same as the truck sluggishly climbed to its maximum speed of 90 or so miles per hour, the steering wheel vibrating frantically like a handheld back massager gone haywire. I was too busy keeping control of a vehicle that wasn’t designed for high speeds to worry about my personal safety or even my job safety, my focus on my task allowing me the clarity that had eluded me just moments before. I soon realized that in addition to my head start, my other advantage was piloting a truck not quite as old and beat up as the landowner’s; the image of his truck in my mirror receded and then disappeared, and I was

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Field Techs – The Unsung Heroes of Biology

Uncategorized / Geoff

HIDDEN NOMADS If you read an article in a biology journal or a news article discussing the results of a biological study, you’re seeing the results of the challenging and often dangerous work of wildlife biology technicians, or as they’re more commonly known, field techs. Although their daily lives are defined by enduring physically and psychologically challenging conditions as they collect the data and perform the observations that form the basis for scientific inquiry, you won’t see their names in scientific publications and they won’t be appearing in a documentary or delivering pithy quotables to National Geographic or NPR. It’s no exaggeration to think of these hard working and dedicated lovers of the outdoors as the unsung heroes of biology. When you do see them, you probably won’t know it. If you live in rural America, you’ve probably seen field techs at your local grocery store stocking up before their next stint in a remote corner of your area, people you can identify only as outsiders, possibly in need of a shower and a trip to the laundromat. When you drive on an interstate, you’re sharing the road with field techs hurtling across the country on their way to the next job which will last two, maybe three months before it’s time for them to start applying for jobs and interviewing all over again. The life of a field tech is one of instability and constant discomfort which offers little in the way of material gains, one which makes it difficult to develop and maintain lasting personal relationships. It’s common for field techs to find themselves becoming acquainted with a new group of strangers with whom they’ll be working and living as each season begins, with the knowledge that these new, temporary relationships are likely to be intense but fleeting. But this lifestyle also offers unparalleled opportunities for true adventure — to explore deep into unvisited corners of America’s forests, grasslands, and deserts and to experience the country’s natural beauty through intensive interaction with its plants and wildlife. THE LIFE OF A TECH A typical working day for a field tech would be unimaginable for many people. That day might start hours before sunrise or just before sunset. It may involve sitting still for hours in sub-freezing temperatures or it may involve chasing animals, some which have the advantage of flight, through densely wooded canyons. It may involve sweeping up insects with a hand-held net, putting a tracking device on a large carnivore, or spending hours on foot with a receiver and antenna determining the location of the animal bearing that tracking device. It may involve miles of excruciatingly slow driving along unpaved roads or carrying heavy equipment deep into the wilderness where the potential for deadly encounters with wildlife or weather phenomena is ever present. It may involve encounters with swarms of angry insects or angry (and potentially armed) landowners. The living conditions field techs endure for the duration of their seasons, which could last anywhere from a few weeks to a few months, might also be difficult to relate to. Those lucky enough to be spending the season sleeping in a permanent structure may have to share a single bathroom and small kitchen with several other technicians. Others might be sharing the claustrophobic quarters of a single-wide trailer with no other traces of civilization in sight. Others still may be sleeping in a tent every night or finding a way to lie down comfortably for the night in a vehicle; access to electricity, kitchen appliances, or running water may be lacking along with internet and cell phone service. It’s possible to go days or even weeks without seeing another person. For those field techs committed to the experiencing the lifestyle full-time, the gaps in between seasons are likely to bring an entirely different set of stressors with them. When it’s time to look for work again, a field tech vies with dozens or perhaps hundreds of applicants for coveted, highly competitive positions. If applying and interviewing for jobs during a season, restricted access to the internet can delay and otherwise encumber the process. Upon securing the next season’s work, the tech may have the luxury of a couple of weeks to make their way to the next job. In this case, they might spend the time camping and visiting national parks along the way or perhaps staying with friends, some of whom may be part of a network built up through years of cultivating acquaintances with similarly minded outdoor enthusiasts in the field. Or they may have only a few days to work their way through thousands of miles of uniform American interstates in vehicles packed tightly with everything they’ll need for the next few months, stewing in the anxiety, excitement, or some combination of the two that accompanies the start of each new adventure. A repetitive stream of green, blue, and brown road signs; advertisements for the same restaurants, hotels, gas stations, and tourist gimmicks; only the radio or recorded music for company. Highway towns, cheap roadside motels, passing trucks, pulling over for stopped vehicles, left lane ends in half a mile, road work ahead, next rest area 74 miles, and thousands upon thousands of white rectangles dividing lanes and whizzing by in an endless stream. If no jobs are available, as might often be the case in the winter, a field tech is forced to find an alternative temporary living and working situation. A tech shut out of work in this manner may find themselves forced into unfulfilling and tedious toil in food service or retail, working within walls and under unnatural lighting, daydreaming of an opportunity to return to a job which involves walking through natural environments in search of elusive animals at some unknown time in the future. FIELD TECHS: WHO AND WHY Given these challenges, why would anyone pursue this lifestyle, sometimes for years or even decades, when the discomfort and dangers are so abundant and when one injury or major car

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