For the second installment of our “What’s Your Why” series, we’re excited to highlight Lacey Jessamine, the Director of Community Engagement for ESTX member organization Wildlife Rescue & Rehabilitation. Whether through training, education, advocacy, or direct animal care, WRR fulfills its commitment to wildlife protection and ethical relations between humans and the natural world. By working together, we’re driving a larger movement toward a healthier and more sustainable future for our communities and ecosystems. In this interview, Lacey shares more about her involvement in wildlife conservation, how she got her start in the environmental nonprofit world, and her hopes for the future. Read on to hear her insights!
What inspired you to get involved in environmental work?
As a child and beyond I have always had a deep love for animals. Not just the cute and fluffy ones, I think I love the ones that others do not even more than the ones they do. I’ve spent most of my life obsessively researching animals and the planet in my off time.
A baby skunk being nursed back to health by a Wildlife Rescue & Rehabilitation volunteer.
Why did you choose to work with/join Wildlife Rescue & Rehabilitation? When did you start?
My father was in end-stage dementia and had one last clear lucid day where he asked me if I loved my job in Corporate America. I told him I was great at my job and had built a solid career. He stopped me and said, “But do you love what you do? Do you feel happy?” I joked that “No one” loves their job and he looked me in the eyes and told me to follow what makes you feel like you are making a difference with your passion.
I went home looking through some of my favorite wildlife organizations and checked for any open position. Miraculously, the place I had been the most obsessed with had just listed a position that I would be perfect for; it seemed like it was meant to happen this way. I was able to put all my obsessive research to work and see all those animals helped. I’ve never been happier.
What motivates you to continue working on these environmental issues?
I grew up in Southern California where there are few wild spaces left. We never saw wildlife, the concrete jungle had almost eliminated them. When I moved to San Antonio, I saw the wildlife still holding on desperately in the face of all the new development taking over their green-spaces. That mother raccoon didn’t mean to use your attic for her babies, she would have preferred the hundred-year old tree with the perfect hollow. But the humans cut that tree down to build their home and she was doing the best she could with some insulation and plywood in the attic of the new strange space where her home used to be. She lives in terror that if her babies are a little too loud, she will be trapped and her babies could die without her.
We have to learn to co-exist. What makes a human’s need to make a warm safe home for their child any greater than that mother raccoon’s?
If you could tell people one reason they should care about environmental protection, what would it be?
The world belongs to all of us, not just the humans. If we don’t do better, we will kill everything and have nothing left.
What do you hope your work will achieve for future generations?
I want my great grandchildren to know how important Opossums are, and what role that garter snake has in the world. I want our work to save the bats, the butterflies, and even the Rattlesnake. We can co-exist and be the better for it.
How has being part of the EarthShare Texas network amplified your impact?
EarthShare Texas is a great organization. I love our joint events. You serve as a connection point and make sure the smaller voices are amplified together.
