Just who is forestfauna?

I am many things: a father of three wonderful girls; a husband to an amazing and brilliant wife; a Christian; a wildlife biologist who loves his work but struggles in his chosen profession; a lover of the outdoors; an amateur naturalist; an avid hiker; a wannabe nature photographer.  But, in terms of this blog, I am first and foremost a geocacher.

I actually first stumbled onto geocaching back in 2004.  I bought my first GPS and set up a geocaching account (CrazyMoose).   However, at the time I was working for a non-profit environmental group on a short-term contract that was expiring.  I was tired of the lack of direction/guidance, the lies, and the disrespectful attitude shown to me by the Executive Director, so left my contract a month early.  With no income and a 7 month old daughter to support, I was left with no choice but to return the GPS, having never found a geocache.

Flash forward to September of 2007.  A friend of my wife's (Roaming Red Retriever) was starting to geocache and encouraged us to take it up.  After some begging and pleading, my wife let me purchase a GPS (a Magellen initally, but the non-user friendly interface had me trading quickly for a Garmin Etrex Legend), and we were off looking for our first cache.  That was September 17, 2007, and I have not stopped since.

When we started caching full-on, I couldn't remember my original password, so I decided to start fresh with a new geocaching,com account.   The original name I chose for myself was MarkWild_Bio; not very original, for sure.  After about 500 caches I decided I wanted a new caching name, one that better reflected my varied outdoor interests, my career aspirations, and that allowed flexibility in logging when my whole family was out with me.  So, after weighing my options, I choose the name forestfauna, all one word and all lower case for simplicity's sake.

As of July 16, 2012, I have found 3,119 caches in 4 Canadian provinces and 1 U.S. State.  I estimate that my family has been with me for at least half of those finds.  Considering the demands of a career and a young family, I am pretty happy with those stats.  My proudest stat, however, has to be the fact that I have lost over 30 pounds because of geocaching.  Geocaching has been great exercise.  Hey, who doesn't love a reward at the end of a hike?

Two other members of my family currently have their own caching accounts.  My wife Elizabeth goes by the name forestflora.  She and I met while attending the forestry program at the University of New Brunswick; I went in the direction of wildlife conservation/management, she pursued studies in forest mensuration.  I set up an account for my oldest daughter, Hannah, last year.  She goes by the handle aquakid, because she likes swimming and wants to be a marine biologist when she grows up.  I told her she would be better off pursuing something where she can actually have a career, maybe a nurse like her aunt.  :)