Kevin McDonald

Kevin grew up along the Gulf Coast of Texas, where his parents would take him and his brothers hunting and fishing on the weekends. These early experiences led to a deep interest in fish; when he was three years old, he started asking his parents to read fish ID guides to him every night before he went to bed.

 

Driven by these early experiences, Kevin went on to college at Texas A&M at Galveston, where he received a degree in marine biology and fisheries. After graduation he moved to Alaska to work as a raft guide leading nature tours on the Kenai Peninsula each summer. During the “winter” Kevin stayed warm by heading to the southern hemisphere, where he studied parrots in the Peruvian Amazon and fairywrens in Papua New Guinea and Australia. In recent years, Kevin has been working in some of the coldest places on Earth. He has deployed twice to the frozen continent with the U.S. Antarctic Program at McMurdo Station, and since 2023 he has studied the breeding biology of spectacled and Steller’s eiders on Alaska’s Arctic Coastal Plain.

 

In his free time Kevin stays busy by tinkering on projects in his garage and sharing his love of collecting and selling scrap metal to anyone who listens to him. “It’s literally recycling that pays you. It’s a win win!!”"