About me
It is wonderful, that you are looking for an ethical wildlife experience. You will not regret it, even though you will not bottle feed a lion or ride an elephant. Because it is so much better to see happy animals and people that do an effort to conserve and protect nature and wildlife. My aim is to engage more people in conservation and animal welfare. My passion for animals started when I was very young: I grew up in the countryside, a little town called Lemgo, in the middle of Germany. Next to my home was a rescue center for repudiated domesticated animals like dogs, cats, chicken, horses, rabbits, pigs, donkeys and even lamas. I spent my whole childhood and youth looking after these animals that nobody wanted anymore.
When I finished school, I knew that I want to go on, taking care of animals. I was always fascinated by the wildlife and nature around the globe, so I decided to go to the Netherlands and study "Wildlife Management" at the University of Applied Sciences Van Hall Larenstein. The study provided me with a broad knowledge about global wildlife conservation. During my study I went to Costa Rica for six months, where I did a research about the population status of howler monkeys. I furthermore did an internship at The Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals, a program from the United Nations Environment Programme to save migrating animals. I did my bachelor thesis in Kampheng Phet, Thailand, where i investigated the feeding behavior of Common Asian house geckos.
After graduating I was hungry for doing some real work and moved to Munich to works as a campaigner for the conservation and animal welfare NGO Pro Wildlife. My main tasks were to educate people and travel agencies about the enormous problems in elephant tourism, and to lobby in Germany and Europe against unsustainable pet trade with wild animals. I participated at the Conference of Parties (CoP) of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in 2016, Johannesburg and the CoP of the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) in 2017, Manila. In 2018 I won the environmental award „Trophée de Femmes“ from the Fondation Yves Rocher for my commitment to protect elephants that are abused in the tourism industry. After four years at Pro Wildlife I decided to go back to University and learn even more about conservation. In 2018 I moved to Brighton and now doing the Master of Science "Global Biodiversity Conservation" at the University of Sussex.
But, a picture is worth a thousand words: