Today is my day off. (749 hits)
Category: GeneralRating: 2 on 4 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by fisher (View user info) at 2003-06-05 10:48:39 EDT
Today is not my usual day off. My job believes that I need to be recertified in CPR and first aid. I have today off and Saturday from 8am to 5pm I have CPR and first aid training. I work for a non-profit environmental organization in South Florida. My job is care for all captive animals like venomous snakes, bald eagles, and bobcats. Also I conduct public outreach programs with these animals for the public, for instance I feed them in front of the public and talk about them.
That's just a small portion of the job. I am also required to take the public on nature walks on our preserves and talk about the wildlife, plants, and local ecology. And I'm not done yet.
The part of the job I like is to go out on these preserves and inventory them. Basically, I do a lot of different live trapping to inventory what wildlife we have out there. For inventorying plant communities I do plot sampling, transect sampling, point-quarter sampling along with habitat assessment. The unfortunate part of this is that I come across homeless folks who have, I guess, "squatted" on the property. I have to give them a warning that they are trespassing and if they don't relocate then I have to bring in law enforcement. I have done this 3 times since I been here in the past month.
Finally, I am also responsible for exotic removals. The three most obnoxious ones are melaleuca (from down under), brazalian pepper bush (south america), and cassia (south america) These guys are nasty. I go out on some days with herbicide sprayers and a chainsaw to clear acres of these things. I don't cut any of them down; I girdle them and apply the herbicide to kill them. We try avoiding the clearcut look. The dead trees are left standing among the living natives and it's hard to tell that they are there. Plus, many species use snags as nesting sites. But the main reason is to avoid being an eyesore.
This is a lot different from what I did for the past year with the wolf reintroduction program. There I was responsible for wolf movements, interactions, and locations for the program. I also tracked and kept locations on hybrids and coyotes. The only public I worked with was pissed off farmers and hunters. I covered the western packs, while one of my roommates covered the eastern packs. West was mostly private lands while the east was mostly refuge. I made shit money. $75 a week. That's what interns get paid by FWS. I survived off tunafish and mac and cheese from Dec. 2001 (when I graduated) until March, 2003. I loved every minute of it and I was going to be offered a full time position but the Bush administration caused major budget cuts and they are on a hiring freeze until who knows.
I'm getting ready to start contacting graduate schools about doing research on those wolves that I had been tracking. The program is very interested me doing some graduate work on quantifying wolf foraging behavior there. Since they occupy such diverse habitats, I could match diet and pack size to these different microhabitats. What they are eating and how they are hunting them. What impacts this has on pack size and pup rearing. Some kick ass stuff, but I need to find a professor that would be interested and would like to conduct such research and is capable of helping design the study and find the grants to support it. FWS is strapped and have three Phd dissertations on these wolves. 2 of the three are pointless and are being done in the zoos and the other has been changed three times in the past 5 years. The program is not happy.
What in the hell was I going to post? I can't remember what I was going to post about. I don't use my computer or desk at work, so the only time I can post is at home on my days off. I had a topic I had thought about the last two days. What the fuck! Oh well. It'll come back.
User Reviews
Submitted by maryam <maryamrasti20022000.at.yahoo.ca> at 2004-05-20 06:15:17 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
No Comment
Submitted by Genesis (user info) at 2003-06-05 17:10:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Cool job
Submitted by MickGinny (user info) at 2003-06-05 11:57:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
sounds like an awesome job.
Submitted by catscradle (user info) at 2003-06-05 11:51:55 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I think the South Florida job sounds cool.