Ciara Parry Position/Title: M.SC. by coursework email: parryc@uoguelph.ca Phone: Office: LinkedIn

Education

BSc. Animal Biology (University of Guelph 2020)

Relevant Work Experience

Seasonal Wildlife Care Assistant, Toronto Wildlife Centre (2015 - Current)

• Handling various native wildlife species and practicing various forms of medical treatment
• Running fecals and identifying parasite
• Performing general care tasks such as feeding and cleaning patients

Current Education

Under the current supervision of Dr. Wendy Pearson, I am completing my MSc. by coursework in Animal Welfare and Behaviour. I completed my BSc., majoring in Animal Biology at the University of Guelph. I sought to continue further education at UoG because of its rich environment and the numerous opportunities they offer.

I have a strong passion for wildlife and as such geared my major paper towards it. Everyday people encounter wildlife in one way or another which can lead to positive or negative interactions. Those negative interactions are defined as human-wildlife conflicts, of which I feel strongly towards and want to further understand. Human-wildlife conflict is not an easy value to measure; however, it might be possible to characterize the influence humans have on wildlife by analyzing admission records from wildlife rehabilitation centers. My major paper is a retrospective study examining about 30,000 admission entries from the Toronto Wildlife Centre from 2015 to 2020. The goal of the paper is to evaluate the value of admission records for understanding local human-wildlife conflict by identifying the cause of admission and examining the occurrence of admitted cases by year, month, and taxa.

About Me

As I previously stated, I have passion for wildlife. I’ve spent the majority of my childhood outdoors and have always had a love for animals. During high school I completed a co-op placement at the Toronto Wildlife Centre, and ever since I been hired on a seasonal staff. From many years of working closely with wildlife, I’ve realized how greatly our wild neighbours are misunderstood. I continuously come face to face with how humans have negatively affected wildlife and are commonly classified as pests. I hope to accomplish a better understanding of human-wildlife conflict, so the general public can be efficiently educated on the subject without the use of blame or shame.