Wildlife Biological Intern

The main purpose of this internship is to assist the park wildlife biologist with the wildlife management program for New River Gorge National River, Gauley River National Recreation Area, and Bluestone National Scenic River. You will work closely with the wildlife biologist and wildlife technician to conduct wildlife surveys for birds, bats, and woodrats.  For bird surveys you will assist with operation of a MAPS (Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship) station, which entails 8 field days through the spring and summer netting birds, banding them, and recording data. You will also assist with maintaining the net lanes to keep them open from vegetation.  You will assist with bat acoustic surveys and possibly with bat netting surveys. Additionally you will assist with Allegheny woodrat capture surveys and bald eagle nest monitoring.  Intern may assist with amphibian survey field work.  The intern will work independently using a GPS unit to collect location data for access trails along the bases and tops of the park’s cliffs.  Opportunities will also be made available to work with the vegetation and fishery programs, subject to the interests of the intern.  Assistance with the fishery program would involve fish shocking surveys.  Assistance with the vegetation program would involve applying insecticides for the treatment of hemlock trees for woolly adelgid, treatment of invasive plant species, and assessing the infestation of emerald ash borer on ash trees.  Vegetation work would require the intern to attend Integrated Pest Management training to become certified as a registered technician, licensed to apply herbicides and insecticides.  You may also record data collected and provide preliminary analysis of the information.   You may also assist in creating web pages for the park website detailing various wildlife taxa in the park and the park’s work with them and assist in creating wildlife outreach stories for news releases and web articles.