Desert Shield Environmental Professionals is a woman-owned biological consulting firm supporting large-scale energy, mining, defense, utility, and infrastructure projects across the desert Southwest. We provide compliance monitoring, wildlife surveys, and regulatory documentation backed by more than fourteen years of field and management experience.

Desert Shield was founded by Caitlin MacMurtrie, Principal Biologist, after more than a decade working across the Mojave and Great Basin as a consultant and compliance manager, including as Biological Compliance Manager for POWER Engineers on the 700-mile Greenlink Transmission Project. That work made two things clear: large projects succeed or fail on the quality of the people in the field, and finding those people quickly is the hardest part.

Desert Shield exists to solve that. Over more than a decade in the region, Caitlin has built a professional network of hundreds of high-caliber biologists covering a broad range of taxa and technical specialties. We pair that network with a growing training initiative that brings disciplined, observant, safety-focused professionals, including military veterans, into environmental compliance roles. We prioritize paying our biologists well and matching each project with personnel whose skills and field experience fit the client’s needs, which means strong performance, dependable coverage, and work that supports both the project and the professionals doing it.

We believe safeguarding natural resources and supporting infrastructure development can go hand in hand. Desert Shield stands ready to help projects succeed in even the most challenging and remote environments.

To learn more about some of our projects, workshops, or knowledge, check out our blogs!