Debbie Sykes

speaker

340 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Aug 2026 last heard 6 Aug

Debbie Sykes’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 1.

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Animal Training Academy: Making Ripples · Shifting Perspectives in Wildlife Rehabilitation with Debbie Sykes [Episode 73] · 6 Aug 2026 podcast

They cared deeply, but they didn't know why certain problems kept happening or how behavior science could help solve them, right?

You come to these conferences, you learn these protocols and you go to put them in place.

But again, we're looking at it from our point of view, not the animal's point of view.

So being able to share what our team had learned and help other centers improve welfare has really become one of the most rewarding parts of my career.

Life has recently taken me from Tennessee to Arizona.

And like you mentioned earlier, I currently teach veterinary students how to work with wildlife.

I still get to work with wildlife every day, but now primarily help future veterinarians see welfare through the animal's perspective.

So when they're handling them, when they're doing medical things, you know, seeing the big picture of is this animal releasable?

Is it going to thrive post-release?

Because what's the point of doing all this work if we're just putting them out and they're not surviving?

And whether I'm teaching behavior, husbandry, handling, rehabilitation, it always comes back to the same lesson that changed my own career.

If we slow down and ask what the learner or patient is experiencing instead of what we expect, we make better decisions for them.

We improve welfare and ultimately help more animals thrive.

So I continue to learn and gain as much experience with education as possible through things like going back to school to become a veterinary technician.

And currently, hopefully, passing Karen Pryor Academy.

But really looking back, that's the thread, so to speak, that's connecting everything I've done from rehabilitation to behavior, conservation, education, and training.

It's all about learning to see the world through the learner's eyes, through our patient's eyes, the animal's eyes, including humans, and adjusting things to meet their needs.

Not right now.

It is in the works, though.

So I have recently acquired a desert tortoise.

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