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My name is CJ Kloppenstein. I'm a
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graduate student at Purdue University
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Fort Wayne and I'm here working on the
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Franklin's ground squirrel
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reintroduction project. We are at Kiki
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Sands Nature Park. It's in Indiana. It's
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a beautiful park. There's some bison
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here. It's a protected wildlife area.
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Franklin's ground squirrels, they are
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native to prairie land. And over time
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with agricultural development and urban
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development, we've lost a lot of our
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prairie land. So by reintroducing our
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prairie land along with the Franklin's
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ground squirrels and prairie species, we
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can have this symbiotic relationship of
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helping each other. The Franklin's
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ground squirrels arate the soil, spread
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all these prairie vegetations and
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further that development of prairie
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land. PFW has been insanely helpful with
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this project and with my education. Once
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I came back to school and I started
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doing some wildlife biology stuff, I
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just found everybody was so so helpful
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in helping me get into that field and
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helping me get experiences. And now that
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I get to do this and this is my job and
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I get to do wildlife biology every day,
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it's never felt more right. And PFW is a
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huge part of that. Everyone just wants
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to make sure that you get where you want
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to go. And I feel like my career is
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headed in a way that I want it to.