Jeff Wilson loved his job as a wildlife technician with the Wisconsin DNR.
“They always say, ‘When you find the career you love. You never work another day in your life.’ That was clearly that with me,” said Wilson.
He loved it so much so that he detailed 60 of his memorable stories into his book ‘Wrong Tree: Adventures in Wildlife Biology’.
“The reason I wrote the book Wrong Tree was to educate, entertain, and hopefully inspire young people to consider a career in resource management,” said Wilson.
His work had him involved with research projects and management of dozens of species ranging from bears to beavers all while working alongside the researchers, graduate students, and fellow DNR employees.
“In the back of the book, I have this thing called Cast of Characters, where I follow a lot of these people, I worked with dozens of them over the years, where they are today, and some have made remarkable careers,” said Wilson. “That was a lot of the fun of my career as well.”
Artist Terry Daulton illustrated the book. She says it was a fun challenge working with scratch board, which was a new medium for her.
“Anytime you're working with your spouse there can be some challenges, but we actually had a lot of fun working out how to illustrate different concepts. Some of them were sort of abstract ideas or equipment,” said Daulton. “Sometimes I'd come up with an idea, and Jeff would say, ‘Why are you doing that?’ And I could just say, ‘Because it's what I want to do.’ In the long run, most of them worked out, so it was fun.”
Wilson and Daulton will be sharing adventures from the book at this week’s Science on Tap Minocqua. They’ll be sharing stories, including a focus on osprey.
“I've spent a lot of time with ospreys and a number of bird species, but I just thought this is spring, our neotropical migrants are returning shortly,” said Wilson. “Ospreys are a unique bird in the fact that they winter as far away as Central or South America. We've got band returns from places like Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, and so I thought that'd be an interesting topic to dwell on.”
While Wilson and Daulton will be talking about osprey and some of their adventures, Wilson says they’re open to questions about other Wisconsin wildlife.
“We're so fortunate here to have an abundance of so many species and great biodiversity,” said Wilson. “That's, I guess, the message I hope they'll go home with, that they'll learn something about a species that they are really interested in.”
“When you're working with wildlife, unusual things happen, and a lot of Jeff's stories are funny, so it's always fun also to go home with a laugh or two and something surprising,” added Daulton.
April’s Science on Tap Minocqua is Thursday, April 3 starting at 6:30 p.m. at Rocky Reef Brewing Company. You can also stream it online.
