I was asked how much I get in PayPal donations each year? I have to admit that I wondered what the person was talking about since I have never had a penny donated to my continued work -it's why things take so long to do whether research or whatever: no money (it is a FACT that naturalists make no money).
I did ask why he thought people would think that I accepted donations? "Because you have a Pay Pal link on your page!" was the response. I looked. There is one but it has been there for years and to be honest I only use PayPal to pay out and I'm not sure how the donation things works because it has been that long ago -it was set up for the exotics wildlife work way back in....2008.
Someone I knew said that it was a good way to get funding for work that there was no official funding for and at the time I had crippled myself financially with the work so I thought "why not?"
How did this crop up in the conversation? Well, another year and another failed EU grant failure -I am not young and pretty or diverse enough. Not kidding, I asked someone who specialises in helping people get grant funding and he said bluntly "50 years of experience and research counts for nothing not even if its ground breaking -you must fit the profile of what they want. You don't" So my beard counts for nothing??
Seriously, foxes and badgers do not get you grants. When the foxes and badgers become so rare it will be headline news when a photo is taken then it will be too late.
And, yes, every day I keep asking myself if I should not just retire and stop the stress but the problem is that I am not that smart.
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