Living in central Massachusetts gave Natalie the luxury of exploring nature in her backyard from a very young age. She was fascinated by the dragonflies, frogs, and toads that lived behind her house and would spend hours trying to catch them. These formative moments started Natalie on her journey to work with animals. In 2021, she graduated from the University of New England with a degree in Animal Behavior. After she graduated, she spent a year and a half interning and working in the Bird Department at Southwick’s Zoo with psittacines, corvids, and birds of prey. Before Natalie moved to Florida, she interned at Metro Richmond Zoo in Virginia for three months alongside keepers working with a variety of hoof stock, primates, birds, and reptiles. She quickly learned that training and caring for birds is her passion and the professional route she wanted to take, so she took the leap.
