Mitchell Steele

WORK HISTORY

EDUCATION

ABOUT MITCHELL STEELE

I have been working professionally in the Ecology sector since September 2021, where I am currently working for AtkinsRéalis as a Senior Ecologist and Assistant Team Leader within a team of seventeen people in the Derby office. During this time I have been involved in a range of office-based work such as carrying out ecological desktop studies, writing various reports (e.g, Preliminary Ecological Appraisals, Biodiversity Net Gain assessments, Ecological Impact Assessments and other species/habitat-specific technical reports), and analysing various data such as bat call analysis using Anabat Insight and Kaleidoscope, among other desk-based tasks. I have also been involved in project management for a range of projects and frameworks and a variety of field work including species surveys (e.g, bat emergence surveys, great crested newt surveys involving eDNA, torching and bottle trapping, as well as surveys involving badgers, otters, water voles, hazel dormice, and nesting birds. Further field work I have been involved in includes UKHab surveys and Ecological Clerk of Works (most recently with East West Rail, HS2 and SWTRA). I classify myself as a generalist, meaning I have a keen interest in working with all species of flora and fauna on a variety of different projects. However, currently, my interest lies with bats and am spending a significant amount of my time working on projects involving this particular species, both field-based and office-based.Although I have been working for AtkinsRéalis since September 2021, I have ecological experience that stretches further back in time. I studied for my undergraduate degree in International Wildlife Biology at University of South Wales which included a a field course in South Africa on two separate game reserves. Here, I gained vast experience in big game tracking and understanding patterns in African biodiversity. During my masters degree, I carried out a field-based research project for my thesis. For approximately 2 months, I lived on Rathlin Island where I was studying agricultural damage caused by Greylag Geese through a variety of methods including the exclusion cage method, interviews with island residents and farmers, and other means of physical observation and desk-based research.