Carla Littleton

Lizzy Russo: Here we go. So before I start asking you questions, do you mind telling me a little bit about what your job is?

 

Carla Littleton: Yes. I'm the manager of the Animal Habitats Department. We are a department of about five people, plus volunteers and interns, and we manage a collection of about 100 species mostly native to Pennsylvania, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and invertebrates. I develop educational materials. I help develop exhibits when it's required, like if it's within my area of expertise. I also train volunteers and interns. I do all the interviewing for the department and do finance. So I have a lot of different hats. I think that's something not everybody realizes, especially managing an animal collection is you have a lot of hats. The conservation part of it is a small part of it.

 

Lizzy Russo: Yeah. What's your favorite animal you work with within the collection?

 

Carla Littleton: I love toads. I really love toads. I also like working with the creepy crawlies, especially a lot of people still perceive me as female. There's a lot of shock to handling a Spider and things like that, that older people, it's good for them to see it because it helps them break down some barriers. But for younger individuals, it's a lot of like, oh, I can do this, yeah, you can. So I like that part of it.

 

Lizzy Russo: Yeah. Like cockroaches and tarantulas, they're actually pretty cute and they're fun.

 

Carla Littleton: Yeah. I like big beetles, too.

 

Lizzy Russo: Oh, yeah. Beetles are cool.

 

Carla Littleton: Yeah.

Lizzy Russo: So now that I know what you do, I'm going to ask you the questions I have prepared.

 

Carla Littleton: Okay.

 

Lizzy Russo: How did you get involved in conservation and the environment?

 

Carla Littleton: So growing up, my dad was a volunteer forest Ranger, and my grandfather who lived with us was an amateur astronomer, his wife who lived with us, my grandmother was a dog breeder, and my mom did wildlife rescue. So I sort of was born into it. I'm second generation born in the United States, so we didn't have a lot of money we couldn't do over the summer, couldn't pay for babysitting and stuff. So my dad often took me when he led nature walks and stuff. So starting at like four or five, I was doing every Saturday morning nature walks, and that did a lot for me as far as being interested in nature.

 

Lizzy Russo: That's really cool. It's like a family business.

 

Carla Littleton: Yes. Because of the financial circumstances, a lot of hunting and fishing for sustenance, more or less. So I got to see a little bit of both sides, like the importance of managing deer populations, but also the conservation/rescue and rehab side of it.

 

Lizzy Russo: Yeah. That's really interesting to bring up because I think a lot of conservationists forget about sustenance and sustainable hunting and fishing and that it's so important for people.

 

Carla Littleton: Right. And the fact that we don't have large predators in a lot of the Eastern United States, so something has to take the place of that.

 

Lizzy Russo: Yeah. The deer population is insane.

 

Carla Littleton: Well, I don't know if you know how fast chronic wasting disease is spreading in the deer and there are some areas where they're concerned that it might jump to humans.

 

Lizzy Russo: Oh, gosh, that is scary.

 

Carla Littleton: It's a prime disease and there's a lot of consumption so similar to, like, mad cow and things which are diseases through consumption and contact couldn't jump to the human population. I've seen a lot more research articles on it recently and it's kind of scary.

 

Lizzy Russo: Yes, I worked at a conservation and nature center south of Buffalo where I'm from, and they were telling me about the deer population there and their habitat should sustain about eight to ten deer and there were about, like, 50 to 60 years that they had tracked on their land.

 

Carla Littleton: Yeah, the loss of saplings is forced to regenerate because of them.

 

Lizzy Russo: Yeah. So my next question for you is what has your journey to success been like as an LGBTQ+ person?

 

Carla Littleton: Kind of strange so assigned female birth, I now identify as nonbinary and it took me a long time to do that because growing up, I mean, I was going into the Sciences in the 80s and 90s as a girl and the push to be a girl to be celebrated as a girl. Actually kept me from coming out for a long time. Even though my family was accepting of me, the people around me were accepting of me. There was a lot of pressure to stay girl. And I don't know if that's a neat pressure for me or if other people will experience that as well. But you're important because you're a girl in science. You're important to women and girls because you're a girl in science. And, like, you join all of these organizations and things that are for women in the Sciences, and then how do you entangle yourself from that? And I'm like, right in the middle of becoming comfortable with that in my career.

 

Lizzy Russo: Yeah. That's a very interesting perspective that I hadn't thought about before, but also as, like, a nonbinary person myself, I feel like I've seen that as well. Like, at my school, there's, like, women in Stem clubs, like women in bio. You want to feel like you're included in that, but also you don't want to feel that at the same time.

 

Carla Littleton: And if you've grown up with that, growing up trans wasn't visible. Non binary wasn't visible. Bisexual wasn't even really a word that people use very much. So there wasn't that option. I mean, I presented that way, but people would be just like, oh, you're a tomboy. Like, growing up without those words. I think it might be easier now because you can grow up being okay I'm nonbinary, I was born as a female, but I'm nonbinary where I'm trans. And it's easier maybe because there are at least words for you to use.

 

Lizzy Russo: Yeah, it's complicated. 

 

Carla Littleton: But I found, like, most of the environments have been pretty accepting. I mean, there's always someone somewhere like, I don't think I've ever had a job where everybody is accepting, but a majority of people have. I've been able to be involved in LGBT, Stem events and things at work. I'm able to be out at work. There are people at work who are trans. One of the things that I do as a hiring person is when I am interviewing, especially teens, and I run across a trans team that I'm interviewing, I will bring them into the Department because I know our Department is very supportive of that, and I know in some other places, not everyone is supportive. I mean, there are a lot of supportive people, but there's always those individuals who aren't.

 

Lizzy Russo: Yes. I think it's different between being supported and then being with people like you, it's a different sort of comfort.

 

Carla Littleton: And I think it's good to see that, I've run into a lot of non binary trans teams who don't think that they will ever be able to be in higher level positions. So to see someone like them in a manager position, to know that there are other managers in the building that are like them, I think is really important, too.

 

Lizzy Russo: That's really cool. That's awesome.

 

Carla Littleton: Yeah.

 

Lizzy Russo: So I guess we touched on this a little bit, but do you think it's important for more LGBTQ people to be involved in wildlife conservation and why?

 

Carla Littleton: I think it's just in the Sciences in general. I don't know if you've looked at the numbers, but it's like something like 20 or 30% of LGBT people that start a science degree quit before their second year.

 

Lizzy Russo: Wow.

 

Carla Littleton: It's a really high number. I don't know if it's gotten better since I've looked at the numbers because it's been a few years, but I think that representation, especially in academics, see more people in the field or informal education settings, but I think it would be helpful when academics or those more research-based things for more people to be out because I don't see as many people and maybe that's just because they aren't as vocal about it, but I'd like to see something to help those people finish their schooling. If those numbers are still that high.

 

Lizzy Russo: Yeah, I definitely see that in academia. It's still very cishet, white dominant area, I think across the board.

Carla Littleton 
It's interesting in museum science is that men are the minority we actually have problems with men be like in most fields, it's like, oh, you know, we need to get women in there and it's men and masculine-presenting people that are very much missing. So it's a kind of interesting environment that I am in, where it's sort of flipped with how the discourse goes, and I think maybe that's part of the discourse that needs to be broken down is it's not just this group needs to be included more, but like looking at, OK, this is the field, what groups are not being represented? 

 

Lizzy Russo: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, that's kind of like library science, too. That's another field that goes it's much more women-dominated. 

 

Carla Littleton: Homecare, any sort of like palliative care, nursing care is female-dominated, too. 

 

Lizzy Russo: So my next question is, do you think LGBTQ+ people specifically can contribute to wildlife conservation? 

 

Carla Littleton: I think so, and I think it's broader than just what we might see in a lot of the places where we're dealing with high, high needs for conservation. I think specifically Africa, but I mean, there are other places where you know, they're still struggling with LGBT rights in general. And I think that a combination of researchers that's open can do much for the wildlife, but also social norms in areas. And I think we need to think a little broader than just conservation itself, but what does conservation do? And it just doesn't see the animals, it does all kinds of other changes to the environment where you're doing it. 

 

Lizzy Russo: Yeah, that's a really good point. 

 

Carla Littleton: Something to think about, like if you're doing a project where you want to do conservation in anywhere in the United States, for example, then you want to reintroduce an animal, you have to go before City Council and things and speak about that. And it would be nice to like have that open visibility to a community. In that situation, I think it would help acceptance and help social norms as well as any of the conservation work that's been done. 

 

Lizzy Russo: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So similarly, why do you think LGBTQ plus people have a connection to the environment? 

 

Carla Littleton: I mean, there are a lot of reasons, personally. I think sometimes the ostracization you feel can push you out of the indoors, whether that's by choice, because where there's nobody around feels comfortable or whether that's some other reason. I think there's that dimension of it. And I also think that once you start reading into issues like your own issues, like humanitarian issues or rights issues, you naturally get into all those subsidiary things like endangered species and pollution and all those other things. And then you pair it with, you know, a lot of LGBT people living in poverty and, you know, the impoverished or more impacted by climate problems and environmental problems. So I think there are a lot of different reasons that that can happen. I think it can be very personal like mine is very personal to my family, but someone else's might be different. 

 

Lizzy Russo: Yeah, because that's something I've noticed among me and my friends here at school. And then also like the amount of LGBTQ students in environmental science seems higher than in physics or chemistry. 

 

Carla Littleton: I wonder if that's to do with the fact that those, environmental science has and like some of your some animal behavior and things have been female-dominated and I know from personal experience LGBT people feel more comfortable among females than males. And I wonder if that's part of the draw is that I can't go into physics because this is male-dominated. And like, until that balance is out between males and females, there's sort of internalized barricade there. 

 

Lizzy Russo: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Really does. Haven't thought of it like that before. 

 

Carla Littleton: I don't know if it's something that actually exists, but it makes sense. Just knowing how where people's comfort zones tend to be. 

 

Lizzy Russo: Yeah. And then my last question for you is, do you have any suggestions for young LGBTQ people who are interested in pursuing conservation or environmental science? 

 

Carla Littleton: Reach out to the organizations that are doing field research. There are a lot more accepting than you would think. And it's a good way to make contacts in an environment that might seem more open and friendly. I feel like in a classroom, you can feel like there are too many eyes on you sometimes to, like, approach a professor or something. I think a lot of that field work side of things can feel more comfortable. Especially outside the academic community, there's a lot of citizen science stuff going on. There's a lot of, you know, individual nonprofits that are always looking for people to help with research. Those things are good and never turned like internships are really important, like when I'm hiring. If you have no job experience and you have a degree and I see you've done a couple of internships, that means more to me than if you have that degree and a couple of years of experience. Because it shows that you've actively been in that field somehow. 

 

Lizzy Russo: So do you have any other thoughts or anything you'd like to add about queer ecology and conservation or any other work that you do? 

 

Carla Littleton: I think there's a big push right now, and I have I seen things from like the museum, zoo, and breeding for reintroduction program side of things is where I'm most involved. There is a big push for acceptance that I think the general public doesn't know about, that it's going through internal policies, it's. going through like upper management and people are leading things, and I don't think the general public is as aware of them as they should be. And I'm not sure how to make them more aware of it because you need to be a member of this organization or associated with this organization to find out about it. But I think there's a positive trend there that I think would be helpful specifically for students, but also for the general public to see. Hard science accepting LGBT people. And I don’t know how to get that out there. I struggle with it work because we're doing that in like, how do you inform the public and what's the right way? And then, you know, how do you deal with the backlash? I mean, we have memberships and stuff. And how do you deal with a member that's come in saying ‘I read your policy and I'm never going to be a member of your museum again because you support these people, like, how do you balance all of that stuff out? And I don't know. I don't I don't have an answer. 

 

Lizzy Russo: Yeah, that is tough. That is. That is definitely something that's big to think about hard, right? 

 

Carla Littleton: But I think if you look at policies in a lot of things where five years ago it wouldn't have been there, there are now lines in there about LGBT and, you know, protecting rights of people in the LGBT community. And, you know, it goes on to other groups too, like people of color and people with disabilities and all that. Think there's a lot more of that out there, I think than people think. A lot of that's changed quickly in the past, maybe five years. 

 

Lizzy Russo: Yeah, that's hard to consider, especially from my experience, going to like zoos and museums and stuff where it's a lot of families and then also older people, and maybe those populations would be less accepting. 

 

Carla Littleton: I think there's also less acceptance for like older people being LGBT or families being LGBT like there, there's a big assumption that, oh, that's a myth that looks like a man and a woman, so they're heterosexual, I think. And this is something we've been talking about internally is we need to stop making those assumptions about our visitors as much as we need to start making the assumptions about our own internal community. And I think it's very easy. Even people in the LGBT community get involved in that like appearances and stereotypes. 

 

Lizzy Russo: Yeah, this is interesting to think about making museums and zoos more inclusive spaces that I haven't thought about this before. 

 

Carla Littleton: It's I think the policies that are already out there are more inclusive than the people going there think or want to go there, think they are. 

 

Lizzy Russo: Yeah. And it makes sense because a lot of the time facilities like that are associated with a college or university, which tend to be more progressive than other organizations. 

 

Carla Littleton: Yeah, and I don't know. I wish there was a way to make those revisions, not just for museums and stuff, but for everybody. OK, you know, in the City of Pittsburgh, these five companies in the past month have made these changes to make their spaces more inclusive. I wish that was something that could be put out there where people could find it now, just like for where I want to go. What organizations do I want to support? What local businesses do I want to support? Where am I going to feel safe? And I don't know what the answer is to put that out there. I just see policies changing, and, you know because I deal with helping with the policies and see that the public doesn't know that they happen. Like, I can see it in my own work in the organization. So how do you inform them? 

 

Lizzy Russo: Yeah, that's interesting to think about and to keep thinking about. 

 

Carla Littleton: And the thing that like as a manager, that's where your mind is, is like above, sometimes above day-to-day tasks, not that we don't know that I don't do day-to-day tasks, but you have to start getting into this bigger picture things. 

 

Lizzy Russo: The big ongoing questions. 

 

Carla Littleton: Like how do I make sure that my employees know this is inclusive? How do I make sure you know, my visitors know that this is inclusive? How do I help my donors know this is inclusive? How do I help the community know? And those are all real big questions. 

 

Lizzy Russo: But those are such interesting points I haven't thought about before. It's a  really cool new angle to think about.

 

Carla Littleton: Every business has to think about that. I mean, nonprofits, probably more so because you are dealing with, you know, that revenue coming in is the only thing you have to go on. You're not a for-profit, where you might have some buffer that you have to be a little bit more forward-facing with things. 

 

Lizzy Russo: Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. 

 

Carla Littleton: You're welcome. Nice to meet you. 

 

Lizzy Russo: Nice to meet you, too.