About Me

Who: Nico Julia Collins

What: Aspiring Environmental Educator

Where: Currently in Vancouver, BC

Interests: animals!, 20th Century literature, vintage dresses, making mixed media collages, wildlife hikes, cuddling my kitties, playing video games (Pokemon!), attending concerts

Favourite Animals: snails, pandas, bunnies, cats, pikas, nudibranchs, jellies, hedgehogs, sheep, wombats, koalas, red pandas, raccoons, squirrels, hamsters

Favourite Movies: The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, Moonrise Kingdom, Frances Ha, Sylvia, Lola Versus, Up, My Neighbour Totoro, Cleo from 5 to 7, The Imperialists are Still Alive, Submarine

Favourite Books: Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, Green Mansions by W.H. Hudson, Call it Sleep by Henry Roth, Book of Longing by Leonard Cohen, The Awakening by Kate Chopin, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, The Vagabond by Colette

My Past Animal Related Jobs

Animal Caretaker at Tropical Plant and Animal Exhibit (Bowring Park Conservatory)

I worked at this conservatory in the Winter of 2009 in St. John's, Newfoundland. While it was snowy and cold outside, I was warm and cozy inside. I took care of many animals, including the Indian Stick Bug, whose tank was very hard to clean because I couldn't tell what was a bug and what was a stick!

My favorite animals were the Giant African Land Snails. They were huge, soft, and squishy. Often I would take them out of their tank, spray my arm down with water (so it was nice and wet for them) and let them crawl up my arm! To keep the Giant Snails happy I would clean their tank daily and re-fill their water dishes. I fed them fruit, like apples, around lunch time every day. 

Interpreter and Research Assistant (Ocean Sciences Centre)

My Interpreter job at the Ocean Sciences Center involved teaching people about local marine animals using a touch tank. The tank was outside and the public were welcome to touch and pick up the animals, such as sun stars, moon snails (hiding under the sun star, to the right), scallops, crabs, sea anemones, and sea cucumbers. The animals were all collected from the ocean around Newfoundland and are rotated between the touch tank and indoor tanks for the summer. In September, all the animals are released back into the ocean.

 My other job was much different and involved working with Harp Seals. I assisted with cognition studies, which measured the seals ability to see color out of the water. My other duties involved cutting fish to feed to the seals, and then the fun part: feeding them! I would stand on the small platform, where the seal is, and throw chunks of fish into the tank. All the seals would race each other for food!