The life of a marine naturalist is often romanticized from the outside: long days on the water, educating visitors about beloved coastal wildlife, and a career built around protecting the species that many people only dream of seeing in person.
But behind that image is an industry many women and marginalized individuals say can be isolating, exhausting, and difficult to navigate.
“I wanted to start WLW because I was tired. I was tired of the sexism, bigotry, boys club mentality to overwork and neglect your mental and physical health. I was tired of feeling alone because I knew other women and marginalized people were feeling this too and there was no accountability so at the very least, we needed support and community and to lift each other up.”
How Women Loving Whales Began
What began as a desire to share whale conservation stories from their experience in marine and environmental work and education evolved into something much broader: a growing community where ocean advocates can speak honestly about burnout, belonging, and the realities of working in conservation spaces.
Women Loving Whales was co-founded by Chloe Brown, Rylee Landen, and Sam Carmack, three women who entered marine conservation through different paths but all with the same shared passion for whales and their ecosystems.
The three co-founders of WLW during their Making Waves speaker series. From left to right: Chloe Brown, Sam Carmack, and Rylee Landen.
For the past four years, Sam worked as a naturalist in Southeast Alaska, educating passengers about marine wildlife and conservation. Her background spans environmental education, science communication, and marine advocacy. She recently started a new chapter working as a freelance naturalist, sharing her journeys from every corner of the world.
Chloe has worked as a marine naturalist, sailor, and outdoor educator, where she has taken her passion for whales and conservation all over, from studying in New Zealand to traveling to remote and beautiful islands like Tonga, St. Vincent, and now Maui, where she recently started captaining a sailboat. Her work with WLW largely centers on educational storytelling, where she helps translate marine science into content that feels more accessible through both writing and photography.
Like Chloe and Sam, Rylee also has a background as a naturalist but also owns a sustainability-focused landscaping company. Born in Juneau, she brings a passion for Southeast Alaska and creating harmony between people and their environment to WLW, where she coordinates community events and advocacy efforts.
As three self-described “queer whale-loving gals,” they set out in June 2025 to build an inclusive and informative online community. Bringing awareness to their audience about the conservation updates they were seeing every day in the field was a natural starting point, but it wasn’t the only thing they wanted to address.
Early on, they also set out to better understand the experiences of others in their local community through an Instagram survey in which they asked, “Do you or have you worked with a man that is known to be harassing, unsafe or inappropriate but not to the point of being fired?” 100% of respondents said yes. Over 90% said sexism was an issue.
When Passion Meets Exclusion
While the survey reflected the experiences of their local community in Southeast Alaska, the feedback WLW received is far from isolated.
Across marine science and conservation spaces, women and marginalized groups have long documented barriers that extend far beyond the emotional demands of conservation work itself, from sexism and harassment to financial instability, lack of representation, and burnout.
Despite women often exhibiting higher levels of concern for wildlife conservation, animal welfare, and environmental protection, as well as LGBTQ+ professionals playing a growing role in environmental spaces, representation and workplace equity remain far from balanced.
78% of women in marine science reported experiencing sexual harassment, and 20% reported sexual assault. Nearly 50% said they would not feel comfortable reporting harassment or assault.
LGBTQ+ individuals in conservation roles report feeling up to 50% less safe and like they belong in workplace settings than their non-LGBTQ peers.
Women in conservation occupations earn 87 cents for every dollar men earn, with projections suggesting pay equality may not be reached until 2088.
Women conservation professionals only account for 23% of senior-level positions, often facing stereotypes that they are unqualified.
Gender-expansive conservation professionals report the lowest levels of workplace belonging, with safety scores as low as 40.9%.
Rather than quietly accepting these realities as part of the job, WLW chose to build a community that felt more honest about the challenges of conservation work while still making room for joy. Through educational storytelling, community events as “diverse and nourishing as the sea,” monthly beach cleanups in Juneau, and initiatives like their Making Waves speaker series, they’ve created spaces where conservation feels both more accessible and more human.
“I think our vision is to encourage whale nerds to express their passion for the ocean in whatever form is most authentic to them. It’s so much fun to bring silliness and creativity and queerness to the marine science space!”
Making Waves
In just nine months, Women Loving Whales has grown to more than 3,500 followers on Instagram, where they’ve built a platform that feels equal parts educational, candid, and unserious in the best way.
Their posts strike a balance between breaking down marine mammal policy, documenting life as a naturalist in the field, spotlighting women working in conservation through their “Nice to Meet Ya Monday” series, or sharing niche whale facts.
“I love to talk about toothed whales going through menopause. The adaptation of menopause is almost exclusively toothed whales, most notably Orca, with humans as an unusual primate exception. And of course, all of these whales that go menopause are matriarchal based social structures. Time for humanity to catch up! haha”
Beyond social media, WLW has taken action in creating real-world spaces that feel intentionally different from the environments many of its followers say they’ve struggled to navigate.
Last summer, they hosted Camp WLW, bringing together roughly 30 “whale nerds” from different backgrounds for a night centered around conservation and connection. The itinerary felt intentionally reflective of who they are: beach cleanups, whale trivia, friendship bracelet making, and open conversations about the challenges people face working in marine and conservation spaces.
Around the fire at camp WLW.
They’ve also expanded through larger public-facing events like Making Waves, a speaker series that brought together women across conservation and science, from marine mammal researchers to nonprofit founders and policy advocates, to share the unconventional paths that led them into this work. The event raised funds for future WLW programming while highlighting “badass women who rock the world of conservation and science.”
Their resource hub also offers practical tools for their community, including whale ID guides and educational downloads to advocacy resources that make it easier for people to move from curiosity into action.
In less than a year, WLW has made an inspiring impact on women in the field, showing conservation spaces can be both deeply informative and deeply human.
For Rylee, that community-building is one of WLW’s most important goals. “We wanted WLW to be a collective space for individuals to talk about the reality of the maritime industry, wildlife conservation and the emotional toll it can have,” she shared. “We want to continue to build a community where people feel seen, supported and celebrated.”
Dreaming Bigger
Like many grassroots conservation initiatives, much of WLW’s growth has happened outside of traditional institutional support.
They’ve built nearly everything while balancing full-time jobs, seasonal work, travel schedules, and the realities of adulthood, something Sam pointed out when asked what they would build with unlimited resources.
“…my dream is a WLW music and conservation festival! Last year we did a badass women in conservation speaker series called MAKING WAVES and I would love to combine something like that with performances by passionate musicians who use their platforms to talk about the environment, like Goth Babe and Angie McMahon. Then of course, use the funds from that to continue conservation and research efforts. It's so interesting though, because so many of us within the marine nerd community have these passion projects (and even with Marine Mammal Media Network you might relate). But we are doing this out of love, and it's self funded for the most part and we are planning all this in our free time between our jobs. I always dream about what we could all accomplish if we had access to the resources (and if billionaires didn't exist hehe).”
In many ways, Women Loving Whales represents a shift happening across conservation spaces, one led by younger, diverse professionals who are questioning outdated systems while building something far more collaborative in their place.
They’re proving that conservation spaces don’t have to follow the status quo to be impactful. Sometimes they can look like policy advocacy. Sometimes they look like beach cleanups. And sometimes, they look like friendship bracelets made by 30 whale nerds on an Alaskan beach.
Credit
Thumbnail & Hero: A humpback whale in a partial breach, courtesy of Sam Carmack.