The Worst Jobs In Science

Sure, everyone loves monkeys. But few test that love like Jake Owens. An environmental science Ph.D. candidate at Drexel University, Owens studies the ecology and behavior of drill monkeys. Typically, that involves trips to places like Bioko, an island off Africa’s western coast, where he crawls through snake-infested vegetation to collect monkey dung. In 2010, Owens had to survey an illegal bush-meat market in Equatorial Guinea, where merchants sell meat from endangered primates. Amid the stench of rotting flesh, he took hundreds of hair and tissue samples from the monkeys for isotope analysis. Using this data, Owens aims to locate poaching hot zones. “Most people at the market hated me or the effort to stop poaching that I represent, and they didn’t hide it well,” Owens says. The merchants regularly swatted him with brooms, spat at his feet, and waved blowtorches and machetes to keep him away. The reward for Owens’s perseverance? A mysterious monthlong illness that caused his hair to fall out.