Shannon Switzer

CROC HUNTRESS: The Independent may one day be quite happy to boast that Shannon Switzer once interned here. This Earth-loving, globe-trotting wave-rider has kept herself quite busy writing and researching for the paper’s news department this fall. After growing up near Escondido, Switzer arrived at UCSB in 2001, where she earned a BA in environmental studies and a BS in biology. She’s also helped whale sharks in the Seychelles, studied chimpanzees in Uganda, and worked with humanitarian-aid nonprofit Moving Mountains in Kenya, but her zest for world experience didn’t stop her from returning to Santa Barbara to learn the ropes of newspaper writing. Switzer is now eyeing grad school, where she hopes to learn more about environmental writing, but she admits that her lifelong dream has been to host a TV show: “It would be called The Croc Huntress. I’d chase wild animalsand not die.”