MORE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Frank Turkowski, the author of
Coyotes, Trappers, Sheepherders and Urbanites, has been studying
wildlife for most of his life. He conducted research on coyotes, other
predators and rodents with the U. S. Fish and Wildlife and the U. S. Forest
Service, and the University Of Minnesota Museum Of Natural History.
One of his first professional
positions giving him experience with coyotes and other animals that damage
livestock or crops was as a Mammal Control Agent, otherwise known as a
government trapper, with the Predator and Rodent Control Branch of the U. S.
Fish and Wildlife Service. These experiences working with a variety of people
of many occupations in many locations form the basis of the memoirs for his
book.
Frank’s career has been
diverse. He holds B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Zoology from Arizona State
University and has attended five other institutions of higher learning. He
also has done university graduate studies in Psychology. Other part time and
full time positions he has held include Assistant Curator of Mammals and
Zoology Lab Instructor at Arizona State University, Forestry Research Aid, and
Director of Education and Research at the Phoenix Zoo where he presented
natural history programs for adults and children and studied endangered
species.
Research conducted while with
the US Forest Service and Fish and Wildlife Service included efforts to learn
basic life history information about predators and make trapping and other
predator depredations control methods more selective, humane and efficient.
Frank has published a total of
some seventy scientific papers, non-technical articles, creative essays, short
stories, and poems. He has been presented with two U. S. Fish and Wildlife
Service Outstanding Publications Awards and various certificates of
appreciation for public service. He is looking forward to the publication of
his next book featuring his research activities on predators. Other books are
in various stages of planning and attainment. He is a lifetime member of the
American Society of Mammalogists and the Southwestern Association of
Naturalists. He also is a member of a variety of sportsmen’s and veterans
organizations.
Frank says, “I’ve been around a
long time and have had a variety of jobs, many of them to support myself while
attending colleges and universities. As long as I am learning, I am happy.”
Jobs that helped him pay his way through college including hospital orderly,
truck driver, forklift operator, and construction worker. He also served for
several years as an Electrician’s Mate aboard an amphibious command ship the
USS Eldorado while in the U. S. Navy. The ship’s homeport was San Diego
and it traveled above the Arctic Circle.
Presently he is a free-lance
writer, a co owner of rental properties and a small private school. He also
serves as an Adjunct Professor of Biology and Psychology for Central Texas
College, and teaches college courses on U. S. Navy ships. His work aboard
thirteen ships has allowed him to pursue knowledge and adventure and realize
his love of the sea and fondness for the navy. He has traveled on the
Pacific, Atlantic and other oceans and many of the seas of the world and
visited some twenty countries on six continents while on frigates, destroyers,
cruisers, aircraft carriers and amphibious ships. His travels have allowed
him to earn seagoing labels of Blue Nose (crossing Arctic Circle), Shellback
(crossing equator), Golden Shellback (crossing equator and International Date
Line) and he has traveled through the Suez Canal and the Panama Canal. He is
always ready to swap sea stories with sailors or former sailors.
Frank’s hobbies include
hunting, fishing, photography, military history and gardening. His photography
has appeared in magazines, books, calendars, and in the decor of business and
residential buildings. He is also a Volunteer at the National Museum of the
Pacific War.
Frank lived in has lived in five states in the
U. S. He resided in Arizona for 28 years and in Uvalde, Texas with his wife
Ann since 1975 where they raised a daughter and two sons.
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