Growing up in NY, Mary wanted to be a veterinarian and would study the dog breeds in the encyclopedia. She learned that it was easier to take a needle or deal with pain than it was to administer a shot or inflict pain, albeit for the benefit of an animal, so she chose a career helping wildlife. She graduated from Humboldt State University in California in 1996 with a B.S. in Wildlife Management. She spent numerous years conducting field work in the forests of CA, OR, WA and HI to protect the habitat needs of various threatened and endangered species including various owls and hawks, fishers and the Hawaiian crow and hawk. This migrated into a position of working to protect and restore salmon and trout first for a non-profit watershed council in southern Oregon, and then spent 18 years working for King County in Washington state as a Watershed Steward and Project Manager. In this position she wrote and managed numerous grants to fund acquisition of land and restoration projects to protect and restore rivers and forests for fish and wildlife.

She began coming to Oaxaca in 2011 and immediately felt a strong kinship with the people and culture of Oaxaca. She moved to Oaxaca in 2018 with her two rescue kitties. She has fostered several kitties including Diega who came to her care when she was one week old.

Seeing all the street dogs in Oaxaca city and the surrounding pueblos, and posts for abandoned animals motivated her to find a vehicle to make a difference. She spent the pandemic years learning about the needs and what was being done to help the animals. She saw the need to bring more resources to empower and expand the current efforts, thus, Furry Tails of Oaxaca was born in 2022.