Oriol Palau Maspons is a field biologist specialized in Terrestrial Ecology and Biodiversity Management. His passion about wildlife guided his entire career and encouraged him to study biology in the first place.

Although he has worked in multiple fields, from butterflies to birds he has been always specially interested in mammals. He did his Final Project Degree studying bear dispersion at the University of Udine, Italy, and he studied the interactions between Pyrenean bears and farmers during his master’s Final Project at the Autonomous University of Barcelona.

In 2016 he joined the alpine marmot project run by CREAF (Centre for Research on Ecology and Forestry Applications) focused on the study of future of the Pyrenees by following the day-to-day life of marmots and their relationship with other species who inhabit the alpine meadows. Thanks to this experience that lasted until the end of the project in 2018, he has kept working with the principal investigators in several surveys. Nowadays he is working as a field technician on the project Wildlife in the Changing Andorran Pyrenees, an ambitious project managed by CREAF and the EarthWatch Institute to study the effects of climate change on alpine ecosystems.

Simultaneously, he started collaborating with the Natural Science Museum of Granollers in the SEMICE Project, a project about monitoring the common small mammals in Spain. Small mammals play an important role in the ecosystems, being a key species in the trophic chain and an excellent bioindicator. Starting with just one plot in 2016, he has become now a member of the team responsible of 15 small mammals plots along six different Nature Parks of Girona, from the mountains to the coast. His knowledge in this field is increasing day by day along with his fascination about the ecology of these species.