Click here to send me a text! Have a story to share or just want to chat? Let's connect - because moms need moms!

My guest this week is Sarah Radecker, a Wildlife Connections Supervisor at the Houston Zoo. Sarah manages a team of 21 keepers while overseeing a very diverse animal collection, including reptiles, small mammals like mongoose and meerkats, and ambassador animals!

Sarah and I dive into the postpartum period and what it is like to return to work. We talk about how it feels easier to return to a job you are passionate about as well as how returning to a team with other moms can really help the transition.

Sarah's journey in the zoo field also includes a brief amount of time spent working out of the field. We talk about the emotions that come with stepping away from that "zookeeper" identity and how reframing her mindset helped with that pivot to something new. She made an intentional choice to focus on motherhood during this time, and she shares how she embraced that - as well as how she ultimately made her way back to the zoo!

Mothering Wildlife links:
Facebook MotheringWildlifePodcast
Instagram @motheringwildlife
Email: motheringwildlife@gmail.com

Click here to send me a text! Have a story to share or just want to chat? Let's connect - because moms need moms!

My guest this week is Channing Milchuck, a Primate Swing Keeper from Zoo Atlanta. Channing and I talk about how being a zookeeper is a second career for her. She started in vet medicine and spent almost a decade doing that before transitioning into being an animal keeper.

We also spend a fair amount of time talking about what it is like to have a husband in the Navy and how that has impacted their family life and the start of her zookeeping career.

Channing has great advice for other moms in the zoo field: she always tries to put family first and makes sure that she feels positive about her home life because that makes her then feel more energized at work. Prior to having children she would not have considered herself an organized person but now she is and she says it has been a game changer.

Mothering Wildlife links:
Facebook MotheringWildlifePodcast
Instagram @motheringwildlife
Email: motheringwildlife@gmail.com

Click here to send me a text! Have a story to share or just want to chat? Let's connect - because moms need moms!

My guest this week is Abbey Krumrie from River Valley Raptors, an awesome organization in Wisconsin dedicated to not only educating their local community about raptors and their cool adaptations, but how to protect the habitats they live in right there in their local area. She and her husband started River Valley Raptors together and have since proved that you can incorporate children into your professional life by making River Valley Raptors a family affair!

While Abbey and I spoke about pregnancy while hunting with falcons, breastfeeding in the field (she even tells a great story!), and how working with animals helped her to follow her own maternal instincts around cosleeping, the theme that kept coming up in conversation was about having your kids join your life rather than changing your life for your kids. She tells numerous stories about incorporating her kids into her life and job, from her daughter helping her with the birds to babywearing her son during an educational program. She's even had moms who were attending her programs come up to her afterwards to express support for how she is incorporating motherhood into her job and life.

Check out River Valley Raptors at https://www.rivervalleyraptors.org/

Mothering Wildlife links:
Facebook MotheringWildlifePodcast
Instagram @motheringwildlife
Email: motheringwildlife@gmail.com