For the Young Ones

From a fan (OK...from someone that saw me on TV): "i saw u on Natural Born Monsters and had a couple of questions on what degree in college would benefit in getting a job like yours".

Yes it is true: A uni degree or college degree IS the key to unlocking the door to CHOICE and choice is a powerful weapon for a young person to wield as they move along that dank, shadowy, fog laden pathway we call a Career.

To answer question posed, I did a Bachelor of Science with a double major in Zoology and Geography (GIS/Environmental Science). My heart was in the Zoology and Geography was more of an insurance policy to broaden my career opportunities post graduation. Sensible.....huh?

I actually went to University as a mature age student as I failed to achieve a high enough score in my Tertiary Entrance Exam to get into Uni!!! Please don't tell my children as it will shatter their wee perception of their Super Dad; I was a little bit of a misfit at High School.

Prepared to plunge myself into poverty for a "Piece of Paper", I had to give up full time work to go to Uni. Thus, I only intended to do the mandatory and minimum three year undergraduate degree in Zoology. But I loved it so much that I sucked the life out of university, rather than letting it suck the life out of me. 

I twisted, turned and manipulated my degree to suit myself. For example, Herpetology was run as a third year unit every second year and I just happened to commence Uni on the wrong year. So, not content to accept that I would miss out, I kicked and screamed like a child at the feet of the Head of Department until he conceded to let me into this third year unit even though I was only in my second year. I also crammed my second Major into the timetable of my primary Major so I could get the whole thing smashed out in three years instead of four. I graduated the double major within three years with a Distinction average proving you don't need to be no Rhode Scholar to do well, but you do need to love what you are doing.

I wanted more out of Uni than to just sit in lecture theaters or dissect toads. In my first year, I had heard that someone was doing research on my most favorite animal in the world: the Western Tiger Snake. As I was quite adept at handling venomous snakes I volunteered my services and from those weeks spent with French research scientists playing with Tigers I concocted the crazy plan to do my Honours research project in France. In Australia, Honours is all about learning how to do research and in the field of zoology there is a strong field/lab component to the research year. So I decided my field survey site was going to be Central Western France and the European Viper was going to be my study species. So off I went to France. Too easy (it actually wasn't but it was worth the pain).

The Honours project was awarded a First Class which, in Australia, is the Golden Ticket to getting an Australian Postgraduate Award scholarship. This was the ultimate prize as it was the 'artistic licence' enabled me to develop my own PhD project: the project I wanted to do!!!! 

I commenced my PhD in March 2001 and delivered the Final for assessment in March 2004. The Thesis, which employed ecophysiological techniques (renal, hormonal, behavioural, and physiological) to investigate how reptiles (Western Tiger Snake) survived in the absence of free water, was recommended for Distinction by two of the three reviewers and was thus awarded a Distinction.

So that is 'Academic Me'. How do I get to do what I do? The truth is that a college degree will only get you so far - passion will take you the rest of the way. 

Follow your passion and the career path will appear before you. All you have to do then is 'follow the yellow brick road, de dum, follow the yellow brick road........'. Eventually you will arrive at the Emerald City. My Emerald City is the vast expanse of tropical Northern Australia or the rugged offshore islands of the south where the people are few, deadlines don't exist and the snakes are plentiful.

#MentalHealthWeek2015

Just to be sure of something we already know, I jumped on the Uni library search engine to search scholarly articles on the role of animals in improving mental health. As anticipated I got hundreds of hits for journals and books across many disciplines (psychology, nursing, biology, vet science etc etc) on the positive influences of animals on people. The most common outcome of the animal/human interaction was an improvement in well-being, an increase in social connectivity and increase in accountability and responsibility among the test subjects.

It seems apparent to me that, based on what we do know about humans and the influence of cute and cuddly animals on their mental health it is all sweetness and light, fairies, rainbows and unicorns. But what if the animals are not cute, furry, cuddly and endothermic (warm-blooded)? Can the 'less well-loved fauna' have the same affect?

Moreover, there is one very important facet of mental health what is scarcely apparent in the published literature and that is the importance of that feeling of achievement and accomplishment on a persons self-worth.

If only there was an animal group that could not only boost the feeling of well being in humans but also amplify that feeling with a solid dose of accomplishment.

It has been quite some time since I have done a Venomous Snake Relocation Course and I have never, ever thought about the outcomes of the training from a mental health perspective. It just happened to be that this course was booked and then executed during Mental Health Week. 

Now, I have to be very, very, very clear and explicit here: this course had absolutely nothing to do with the improvement in the mental health of the trainees and I make no assumptions about their state of mind!! It's just that we had so much fun during the course, and due to the coincidental timing I started to look at training I do from a completely different perspective.

Fear, trepidation and introversion are a couple of the key traits that prevent people from truly experiencing the wonders of life. Unfortunately, some people stand so far back from the edge that they miss so much of the world around them. So when you bring a group of people together that don't know each other well, and you put them in a room with a bunch of reptiles you are bound to drag a few out of the cocoons within which they surround themselves. 

When those same people are nurtured through what is sometimes their very first close encounter with some of the world's most venomous snakes and then coached through techniques to manipulate and safely capture these snakes, the outcome for some is almost euphoric. 

I've been doing this for well over ten years now and, although I knew very well that the trainees were having a great time, I never once considered the net positive impacts that our least-loved fauna may actually be having on their mental health. 

Dining Alone

One of the first things that I really struggled with when I started working on remote mine sites and living in remote mining camps was watching people eating alone. Upon seeing such desperately lonely soles I very much wanted to grab the opportunity to wander over, pull up a chair and kick-start a bit of friendly banter. I possibly would have too, were I not constantly in the pockets of my work crew and they in mine. 

Lets be clear though: quite often these loners did not necessarily really look like they were wanting for company but, as a biologist, I know that humans are a gregarious bunch and a lone diner just looks to me like one of those bored and despondent primates in the old concrete and iron zoo exhibits that you just want to reach out and pat!

Strangely enough it did not take very long before I became one of those stoic and stand-off-ish primates buried in a bowl of minestrone soup, with mains, desert and a sweet late evening snack placed adjacent in the appropriate rank and file. It had got to the point where I very much preferred good food to bad company and I guess that is no real surprise. In the field the days are long and when you spend 12 hours a day with your colleagues you really don't want to spend your nights with them as well.

And then tonight, as I sat in the mess hall at Cape Lambert and looked around me a fog of lament and pity descended upon me. There I was, not too early for dinner and not too late, but very alone. This massive dining hall that only a year ago would have been a writhing, seething mass of mining personnel was a ghost town. That boom-time vibe and energy of wealth and prosperity that we  all became so accustom too, and consequently took for granted, has been extinguished by the great mining bust.

To those of you in that dining hall tonight there are two things you very much need to do; the first is rejoice the fact that you have a job and a wage to send home to your loved ones and then you need to drag all your tables and chairs together so you can enjoy each others company. Who knows how long it will be before all of us are dining alone by default.