 After receiving their degrees, the two traveled to Peru in order to study birds and other wildlife native to the area and they were married there in 1950.They lived in Miraflores, a suburb of Lima, and managed Casa Humboldt, a visitor's centre, until it closed in 1967.The Koepckes’ only child, a daughter named Juliane Margaret Beate Koepcke, was born in Lima in 1954.