My name is Megan Schultz. I currently live in Denver, Colorado and I work at the Butterfly Pavilion right now as the adult programs coordinator. I consider myself a naturalist or an environmental educator. I know a little bit of everything, but am an expert of nothing. I didn't start in this career as most people do; I feel like everyone kind of goes camping their whole life or they've always been hiking, especially when you live in Colorado. But I didn't do that; I didn't go camping, I hated hiking. And I would even say I was terrified of nature when I was younger. But I have always loved animals. 

I ended up going to college at Colorado State University; I learned identification up there of plants, animals, fish, all of that stuff. And I fell absolutely in love with everything in nature, between taking photos and being at that campus, so one of my first jobs was working as a naturalist for the Denver Audubon. It's kind of different, I didn't have the typical upbringing and I didn't see a lot of women or women that looked like me out in the nature field as I feel like a lot of us do. And even in my classes, there were lots of outdoorsmen and I had a pair of Nike tennis shoes; I didn't have gear like that or anything. So I felt a little bit out of place, and I still have impostor syndrome every once in a while. But I think I found my niche.

 There are so many boundaries and drawbacks, and I mean, we're experiencing racism in nature, or people not feeling comfortable there because they don't think they belong out there, women or people of color, LGBTQ communities. And I do feel, as a woman, too, I do like to take on caretaker roles, but I don't ever want anyone to feel as I did in nature because that's not conducive to learning and getting the sustainable actions to happen. 

There's so much of a world out there for people to discover if you're able to help constructively guide that education. I was just finishing up my master's thesis the other day and I was like, “Me being here telling people the importance of pollinators and spiders and scorpions and being so fascinated by them…everybody can get there.” All my work was focused around building empathy through conservation education, which is a fairly newer field and it's more psychological than what you typically see in conservation. It's not as statistics driven; it's really just looking for an emotional connection, which is what I got. I didn't fall in love with animals because they told me that they were going extinct at rapid rates and stuff. I fell in love with it because I was outside, taking photos, getting stories, and stuff like that. Animals are just so magical and waiting for that one picture. They have each their own little personalities. I've always believed–I'm not religious, but I'm definitely spiritual–and I've always believed that butterflies are ancestors or souls or passed on loved ones delivering messages. 

Stories are so inspiring to me; personal connections, interconnectedness is always a theme in nature and peoples and relationships, and I don't think I would get that being in a regular job. I feel inspired still every day even though it's a hard career.

I like lots of old stories, and usually they're Indigenous stories, and I end up finding stuff about North America. The God is called Huitzilopochtli, and he is dressed and garnished as a hummingbird because they were seen as the fiercest and the strongest of the birds, which is so true. They'll go toe-to-toe with Red-tailed hawks, and they're very flashy, very silly. I believe he's the God of War. That's Aztec lore; they also believe that warriors would be reincarnated as hummingbirds as well. 

There's a couple of other South American legends, too. One of them goes that there is a huge forest fire and all the animals are running away, but this little hummingbird would take little droplets in his mouth, and he would spit them on the fire. He'd go back and forth, back and forth. And a jaguar asked him, “Why are you doing that? You're not doing anything.” And he was like, “I'm doing the best that I can.” 

I just think they're really cool. There's one that I've named Fernando, and he would come on his perch every day and I would say good morning to him. He was a little Broad-tailed hummingbird. They’re some of my favorites. Even at my apartment complex, there's a couple of ones that nest in the trees below and I have the food up for them, but I think they always come and visit and say hello.