CSI: Wildlife

Dr. Rebecca Kagan ('04)

Everyday Dr. Rebecca Kagan walks through her office door, she does so with the realization that very few people in the world do what she does for a living. In fact, you can count on one hand the number of wildlife forensics pathologists there are in the world, let alone the United States. “The lab where I work is the only federal wildlife crime laboratory for the study of wildlife forensics,” Kagan said. “For full-service wildlife forensic pathology of wildlife in the United States, we’re it.” Kagan’s lab is the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service National Forensics Laboratory in Ashland, Ore. As a veterinary pathologist since 2010, she has worked with Federal Fish and Wildlife agents and refuge officers on suspected legal violations. Think CSI for wildlife. This involves collecting evidence, figuring out what analyses to do, putting together test results and ultimately determining a cause of death.