Karina Morales is Caledonia County NRCD’s Natural Resources Conservation Specialist, joining the district in May 2025. Karina was born in Puerto Rico where she spent her early childhood years before moving to NYC. She later moved to Moretown, Vermont, where she worked as a veterinary technician while she pursued a BS degree in Wildlife Biology at the University of Vermont. During her time in Vermont, she became especially interested in Vermont’s natural communities, reptiles and amphibians, and birds. After graduating, Karina traveled out west in pursuit of work in the wildlife field. On this journey, Karina worked with big cats in a sanctuary in Florida, and with ambassador animals in an aquarium and invertebrate zoo in Colorado. She landed her first seasonal job in the wildlife field back in the Northeast working on various natural resources projects from bird, moth, and bat surveys to vegetation surveys and a goat-grazing restoration program. From here, Karina went on to work on various projects throughout the country (primarily in the west) and then in Puerto Rico, working with a variety of endangered species and conducting a variety of surveys along the way. Karina is excited to be back in Vermont and to have the opportunity to work with communities on flood resiliency, improving water quality, and enhancing habitat for wildlife. Karina’s work at Caledonia County NRCD includes riparian buffer plantings, facilitating aquatic organism passage improvement projects, and she is working towards gaining expertise in wetland, stream, and floodplain restoration. In her free time, she enjoys hiking and camping, live music, snowboarding, spending time with her loved ones (including her four-legged friends), and skateboarding (poorly).