Charles Krebs Dr. Charles Krebs was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1936 and spent most of his professional career at the University of British Columbia studying the wildlife of the Canadian North. As a young boy, he developed an interest in Canada's Arctic and was curious about the wildlife of the frozen islands. He was particularly interested in the habits of the lemming and the snowshoe hare. Dr. Krebs is an animal ecologist. He studies the internal workings of the animal's body, its genetics, evolution and behavior. He is presently a professor of Zoology at the University of British Columbia. Incidentally, Dr. Krebs discovered that lemmings do not jump off cliffs, as many people have come to believe, but the lemming population does drop significantly about every four years.