As chair of the department in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, Dr. Eric Hellgren’s attention was drawn to the not-so unusual twittering made by his desk phone one blustery January morning. But—little did he know that by answering that phone, it would lead to a proliferation of support for projects involving ground-dwelling birds in the Andes, Caribbean manatees, wildlife inhabitants of the Paraguayan Chaco forest, and more widespread mammal population dynamics in the Tropics.

Scholarship founder, Ron Magill, attended classes at UF before ascending to his role as Communications Director and Goodwill Ambassador for Zoo Miami. He was the man who spoke to Hellgren and would be partially responsible for helping one of the many talented students that Dr. Hellgren knew aspire to similar accomplishments.

Appointed WEC faculty six years ago, Matthew Hallett, whose work on jaguars, was partially responsible for his success as an alumnus and acquiring status as a faculty member, used the first awarding of this scholarship in 2015 to help achieve these outcomes. Now, he is instrumental in paying-it-forward by taking students out into the field to learn wildlife techniques, his instructing on zoo management and conservation, and contributing research to the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

Following the bends of the warp-and-weft of this foundation story is only one causal chain that—with your help, develops as an ever-growing ecosystem of interwoven narratives that can literally help change the world. All of this is possible with your donation to the Ron Magill Conservation Scholarship! 

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