The People of The Peregrine Fund: Carolina Granthon

 
Adjacent to our research library and with a beautiful view of the Treasure Valley sits the office of our Research Coordinator Carolina Granthon. But this hasn’t always been her home here at The Peregrine Fund.  “I started about six and a half years ago as a Propagation Specialist,” she explains. As a member of our propagation team, Carolina helped care for the breeding flocks of raptors housed at our headquarters at the World Center for Birds of Prey in Boise, which most famously include the largest breeding flock of California Condors in the world. “I really enjoyed working hands-on with the birds,” Carolina says. “But I wanted to be a part of the big picture of conservation.”

And so, two years ago, Carolina transferred to a role on our science team, where she coordinates adaptive management efforts for our entire organization. “If conservation is a puzzle, adaptive management is like starting with the edges,” she explains. “It frames the problem and lets us decide where the best place to start is. If we try to jump straight in when we see a conservation problem, we don’t know where those individual pieces go and how they relate to the rest of the picture. By having a structured, step-by-step approach, we can see what’s working, what’s not, and adjust our plans to have a bigger impact.”

This big picture work may not be as flashy as some of the individual success stories that emerge from our various programs, but it is the foundation of our work and drives lasting impact. “We’re a global organization,” notes Carolina. “We’re trying to conserve all 561 raptor species, so we need to be able to prioritize our efforts. Adaptive management makes sure we’re making our limited resources count.”

Carolina is also working on her PhD at Boise State University, supported by The Peregrine Fund. While she says her time in propagation was special, she’s very happy to be where she is. “The scale is completely different,” she explains. “I’m lucky that I now get to work with all of our programs, all of these different raptor species and conservation issues, and all of the exceptional people leading our efforts in the field.”