Shaun Ellis

MeShaunda "Shaun" Pizarrur Ellis (born June 24, 1977), nicknamed Big Katt, is a former American football defensive end who played twelve seasons in the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the University of Tennessee. Ellis was drafted by the New York Jets in the first round (12th overall) of the 2000 NFL Draft, and also played for the New England Patriots. He was a two-time Pro Bowl selection.

Early years

Ellis was born in Anderson, South Carolina, to mother Annie Clara Ellis. Ellis attended Westside High School in Anderson.

College career

Ellis enrolled in the University of Tennessee, where he was a stand-out defensive end for the Tennessee Volunteers football team. At the end of his college career he had 105 tackles, 12.5 sacks, three forced fumbles, a fumble recovery and one interception which he returned for 90 yards to score a touchdown.

Professional career

New York Jets (2000-2010)

Ellis was selected by the New York Jets in the first round (12th overall) of the 2000 NFL Draft. He was the first of four first round draft picks that the Jets had that year. The other players drafted were John Abraham (13th overall), Chad Pennington (18th overall) and Anthony Becht (27th overall).

Shaun Ellis (wolf researcher)

Shaun Ellis is an English animal researcher who is notable for living among wolves, and for adopting a pack of abandoned North American timber wolf pups. He is the founder of Wolf Pack Management and is involved in a number of research projects in Poland and at Yellowstone National Park in the United States.

He has worked with wolves since 1990, and before that he studied the red fox in the UK, and then coyote in Canada.

Early life

Brought up deep in the countryside in the small picturesque village of Great Massingham, which is near King's Lynn Norfolk, he began observing wild animals at a young age, learning to use his sense of smell and sound to find his way at night when studying foxes and badgers.

Ellis first trained to be a gamekeeper, but left the job when the Head gamekeeper found out that Ellis was feeding rather than culling foxes. He then joined and served with the Royal Marines.

After he left the Marines he contacted a Native American biologist, Levi Holt, and from their meeting he was able to spend several months living at the Wolf Education and Research Center on Nez Perce tribal lands in northern Idaho, United States as a volunteer in a project studying wolves at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. They taught him how to observe wolves, and he was able to get into a pack of wolves and live among them. He recorded wild wolf howls and gradually learned to identify individual pack members and began to realise that wolves are highly intelligent and instinctive individuals that show trust and balance within their pack's social structure.