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Audubon Alliance Field Staff Spotlight: Theresa Galban
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| Theresa assisting CT DEEP with Canada Goose banding. Photo: Tayler Grimm |
Where do you monitor shorebirds?
I’m the Audubon Coastal Waterbirds Technician for the Western portion of the state. That means I monitor beaches from Stratford to Greenwich, but I spend most of my time at Long Beach in Stratford, Pleasure Beach in Bridgeport, and Compo Beach and Sherwood Island State Park in Westport.
When did you begin working for Audubon?
I started working for Audubon at the start of the 2025 nesting season, so this is my second season on the beaches!
How did you get here? What would you like to do next?
I guess you could say I started my career volunteering in high school at New Pond Farm Education Center, an environmental education center in Redding, CT. New Pond really sparked my love for animals and the environment, which led me to go to Franklin & Marshall College, where I double majored in Animal Behavior and Environmental Science and graduated in 2024. During school, I got to intern for the Pennsylvania Game Commission and discovered that I really want to work in wildlife conservation doing field work. After graduating, I got a seasonal job doing stream and vegetation surveys for trout habitat in the Catskills. My next position was spending the winter working with waterfowl on NYC reservoirs in Westchester County. I’ve worked that job for two seasons now and plan to go back for a third. After my first waterfowl season, I started my first season with Audubon CT, and here I am in my second season. In the future, I’d love to do more seasonal jobs to get more experience and meet new people, but long term I want to get my master’s degree in wildlife conservation and continue doing field work after that!
What is your favorite part about this job?
I love that I get to be outside every day and that every day is different, but mostly I love that I get to experience the shorebirds on a level most people typically never do. Being on the beaches every day, I get to know the birds’ personalities a little bit, and witness their entire mating cycle, from the birds establishing territories, to laying eggs, to the chicks arriving, growing up and fledging. I get to witness the chicks’ first days of life and watch them skitter around the beach on their adorable toothpick legs, which feels really special.
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| Piping Plovers. Photo: Theresa Galban |
Who or what was the biggest influence that led to your career working with wildlife?
I wouldn’t say there’s any one person or thing that influenced me, but a combination of factors. My parents definitely were a big part of it. I was raised as an “outdoor kid”, and my mother has a distinct love for wildlife that she shared with me, so I grew up knowing I wanted to work with animals. We also lived down the road from New Pond Farm, where I learned more about ecology and the environment, and discovered that I want to work in wildlife conservation.
What do you like to do outside of work?
I love spending time outside and exercising, I ski and snowboard in the winter, and hike in the summer. I’ve always loved baking and have recently gotten into sourdough, which has been a fun challenge. I also love reading and crocheting, and spending time with my cat.
Volunteer Monitoring Data:
- Number of volunteer reports submitted: 110
- Total volunteer monitoring hours: 176
- Number of beachgoers engaged in conversations about birds/conservation: 217
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| Piping Plover. Photo: Susan Allen/Audubon Photography Awards |
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| American Oystercatcher. Photo: Douglas Duncan/Audubon Photography Awards |
American Oystercatcher Data Summary:
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| Least Terns. Photo: Kyle Matera/Audubon Photography Awards |
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| Common Tern. Photo: Xianwei Zeng/Audubon Photography Awards |
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