Joshua LaForest

Specimen Processor Wynn Hospital

Scientific

Utica, City of Utica, Oneida

About Joshua LaForest:

Special skills:

Orienteering/ long term remote living (Eagle Scout)

Power tool / equipment operation

Electrofishing/ net surveys of various ray finned species

Husbandry of cold and warm water ray finned species in a farm setting

Knowledge of general laboratory procedures

Any chance to engage with wildlife or the ecosystem in a positive or synergistic aspect is a constant goal and I would like to apply the way I engage with the world to projects that will benefit future generation's ability to have equitable access to the earths' diminished resources.

Both of my great grandfathers were WWII veterans called Sunny; on my paternal side he was contracted from farm to farm with a notorious ability to bring a failing system back to full circle- he apparently also dug his basement by hand with 5-gallon buckets. My other great grandfather was a producer of many fruit trees, large gardens, bees, and abundances of fish and other harvests' that I remember to this day.

To date working the hatchery has been the closest to what I would consider fulfilling this generational commitment to the land and trying to restore New England or potentially other parts of the country to a place that was once described with strawberries so thick through old growth it stained the boots of colonists or brook trout the length of forearms in southern tier New York watersheds.