Summer Internship With The Arizona Game And Fish Department

I am a freshman student at the University of Notre Dame pursuing a major in Environmental Sciences and would like to be considered for a 2017 summer internship with the Arizona Game and Fish Department. I aim to dedicate my career to conserving biodiversity. With my previous mammal research experience, robust worth ethic, and passion for conservation, I would be honored to aid in the Game and Fish Department’s mission through this internship.

In the past, I researched the effects of climate change on woodland jumping mice in northern Michigan under the mentorship of Dr. Paul Keenlance of Grand Valley State University. Through this experience, I implemented the mark-recapture method, and learned how to handle small mammals, use a GPS to mark locations, gather data, and obtain DNA samples from the mice. Moreover, this project exposed me to the immediate

Though I researched small mammals in the past, I would love to expand my knowledge by studying larger mammals. Furthermore, I have been briefly exposed to telemetry in tracking American martens, but would like to master this technique, and learn proper animal capturing and collaring operations with the wolves. I am willing to hike in adverse weather conditions and over rough terrain in order to gather more data and gain the most out of this project.

Cordova’s project mapping prairie dog colonies and other duties like trapping black-footed ferrets and collecting for disease sampling is the next project that interests me. This venture is similar to my prior research project in which I determined populations and densities of woodland jumping mice, so I would love to broaden my knowledge in surveying and mapping prairie dogs. In addition, I am always open to diverse duties—I often fixed broken traps and helped with side projects during my past research—and am willing to work hard on any task assigned to me during this