Imagine having a career where one day you’re leading wildlife field trips, the next you’re tracking endangered black-footed ferrets at night, teaching archery, helping fight wildfires, or releasing endangered animals back into the wild. What if your future job combined outdoor adventure, wildlife conservation, environmental education, and working with people from all different backgrounds — all while helping protect some of the country’s most important ecosystems?
In this presentation, Isis Rivera Lopez, Urban Park Ranger with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, shares how growing up exploring rivers and climbing trees on her grandparents’ farm in Mexico inspired her passion for nature and eventually led her to a career at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge near Denver. Isis explains how her job focuses on connecting local communities to nature through field trips, environmental education, outdoor recreation, archery programs, outreach events, and wildlife experiences that help people feel more comfortable exploring the outdoors. She also shares how important communication, teamwork, leadership, and community connections were in helping her build a career in conservation.
Isis also gives a behind-the-scenes look at the exciting variety of work involved in being an urban park ranger. From handling animal pelts and bison skulls during educational programs to surveying endangered Wyoming toads, monitoring wildlife, using binoculars to track animals, assisting with prescribed burns, and working with one of North America’s most endangered mammals — the black-footed ferret — no two days are ever the same. She shares that only around 300–500 black-footed ferrets remain in the wild, making conservation work critically important. Whether you enjoy wildlife, teaching, science, outdoor leadership, firefighting, community outreach, or simply being outside, this presentation highlights how careers in conservation can combine adventure, purpose, education, and real impact every single day.