I Track Invasions. I Feel Invaded.

I spend my days documenting how raccoons are destroying everything. Telemetric collars, photo traps, endless data sheets. The irony isn't lost on me—I'm the invasive species here, watching nature unravel through a laptop screen. These raccoons are smarter than my funding committee. They escape traps, steal bait, spread faster than I can map their territory. Every data point confirms what I already know: we're losing. My advisor calls it 'groundbreaking research.' I call it counting corpses. Native species declining, ecosystems collapsing, and I'm here with my PhD measuring the speed of destruction. The worst part? The raccoons didn't ask to be here. Neither did I. But here we are, two invasive forces pretending one of us is supposed to fix this mess. I used to love fieldwork. Now I just feel complicit. #Science #EcoAnxiety #FieldworkBurnout