VOLUNTEER SPOTLIGHT: Ryane Logsdon

A wildlife enthusiast since childhood, Ryane Logsdon is now finishing her Ph.D. thesis in the Animal Behavior Graduate Group at UC Davis. In between research, writing, and her many other academic duties, she makes time to volunteer at the California Raptor Center. With more than four years at the CRC under her belt, Ryane is involved in many aspects of the center’s operations, from rehabilitation to educational outreach to training the ambassador birds.

We asked her about how she got here and what keeps her coming to the CRC:

Biography

Ryane, originally from Baltimore, Maryland, has always wanted to work with animals. At age 3, she decided she wanted to be a veterinarian, and this ambition did not change until high school when she began volunteering for the Education Department at The Maryland Zoo in Baltimore. While volunteering at the zoo, Ryane got to work with a variety of critters including penguins, snakes, a serval, and, for the first time, raptors. She continued volunteering at The Maryland zoo during her breaks from college and learned not only that there were other animal-related careers available beyond veterinary medicine, but that she really enjoyed public outreach. Ryane could often be found around the zoo teaching kids about the difference between horns and antlers, or with an Eastern screech owl on hand. 

Ryane got her B.S. in Ecology and Evolution from the University of Rochester in upstate New York, and it was here that she began working with animals in a research capacity. In the lab of Dr. Richard Glor, Ryane gained her first research experience collecting data on Anolis lizard behavior. While working in this lab, she also got her first introduction to field research, traveling to the Dominican Republic to record lizard behavior in the wild. Ryane also conducted a summer internship at the University of Maryland researching vampire bat social behavior during her college career. After graduating, Ryane spent a year working as a dog trainer before turning her attention to birds and starting her doctorate degree in the Animal Behavior Graduate Group at UC Davis.

After a year tracking the local American crow population in Davis, Ryane is now a Ph.D candidate in the Patricelli lab writing up her thesis about courtship behaviors in greater sage-grouse, a chicken-like bird native to the interior west of the US. Greater sage-grouse are a declining species that have intense, 3-month breeding seasons, during which the males gather together to perform courtship displays for hours a day in an attempt to attract females. Through the course of her Ph.D., Ryane has spent 3 years traveling to Wyoming to conduct experiments and collect behavioral data on sage-grouse courtship behaviors. Her research aims to understand how the habitat structure and social environment influence these courtship behaviors. Ryane enjoys spending her free time reading and watching TV, training her cat, and volunteering at the California Raptor Center.

Interview

What brought you to the California Raptor Center?

I think the CRC is one of the best-kept secrets in Davis - as soon as I learned about it, I reached out to see if there were volunteer opportunities available and was lucky enough to join the team shortly thereafter. I have always liked volunteering with animals, and, as my focus switched from conducting fieldwork to that of data analysis, I was especially interested in finding somewhere to work hands-on with animals. As I have a special love of birds and outreach, the Raptor Center was a perfect fit!

What is your favorite part (or parts) of volunteering at the California Raptor Center?

This is a hard question to answer! I love so many things about volunteering here! I enjoy the opportunity for outreach with the education team. I think having close encounters with animals is a really important way that people connect with nature and these outreach events can really increase someone's desire to engage in environmental activism, so I love watching people's interest in the natural world increase as they learn about the birds we have on the glove. But above all else, my favorite part of volunteering with the CRC is getting to work with the birds. I love getting to work on the rehab side of things - seeing birds improve with treatment and get released is always really exciting. I also love getting to know the resident birds, learning their personalities, and gaining their trust - it brings me great joy when I can enter a nervous bird's enclosure to give them food and have them remain calm in my presence. In particular, being part of Phoenix’s training team has been one of my absolute favorite things to do over the past few years. It's been so much fun learning her preferences and stressors and watching her progress through her training. Peregrine falcons are such a cool species, and Phoenix is an awesome bird, it's been a really amazing experience to develop a working relationship with her.

Now that you have given your Ph.D. exit seminar and are wrapping up your graduate work, what do you have in mind for the future? Think you will make raptors a part of your future work?

Well, my first plan is to finish up my Ph.D.! I still am in the process of writing up my thesis, but it's nice to have a big check-box complete and be able to share some of my results. I'm not yet sure of my plans beyond that, but I'm really interested in continuing hands-on work with animals. Through my time with the CRC, I now know I have a strong interest in wildlife rehabilitation, and I've been able to strengthen my interest in animal training and husbandry - so these are the fields I'm hoping to pursue. I do love raptors and hope I get to continue working with them as well - time will tell!

We suspect that Ryane’s interest in birds and behavior will accompany her wherever her path takes her, and we are thankful to have her as part of the CRC team.