12/15/17- Bat Monitoring at Big Cypress National Preserve

     Working at Corkscrew has its perks. In the course of gaining invaluable experience in conservation in an old-growth cypress swamp, you meet plenty of interesting people that are usually involved in other regional conservation efforts in Southwest Florida. This week, I had the chance of helping volunteer and donor Ralph Arwood conduct bat monitoring surveys in another place he is heavily involved with-- Big Cypress National Preserve.

      Ralph is a jack of all trades. In my experience, he is almost solely responsible for clearing backcountry roads that are critical to resource and research staff at Corkscrew in the wake of Hurricane Irma. When he's not here wielding a chainsaw from sunup to sundown, he can be found assisting resource management projects at Big Cypress that span from tracking and collaring panthers for monitoring efforts to operating and servicing acoustic monitoring stations that listen in on Florida Bonneted bat calls. Today, I helped Ralph service an acoustic monitoring unit just off of 11-mile road in Big Cypress. Here's Ralph syncing the unit with a GPS that not only inputs spatial tags on the data, but also links up the unit with the time so that the acoustic monitor will turn on at sundown and turn off at sunrise. 

 Getting to this acoustic monitoring station was a real treat though. Just down a buggy path that runs deep into the preserve, there are multiple cypress domes bordering large pine flatwoods. These are no ordinary cypress trees, though. Due to the lack of available organic soil, these cypress are bonsai'd, giving them the physical appearance of pond cypresses but with a significantly reduced stature. Here's a glimpse of what the walk in looked like:

 Back to the Florida Bonneted Bats, though. Florida Bonneted Bats actually roost in vacated cavities created by Red Cockaded Woodpeckers, a target species that resource managers at Big Cypress plan and manage for given that these woodpeckers serve as an indication for a healthy forest stand composition. Here's what a Red Cockaded woodpecker cavity and perhaps future Florida Bonneted bat roost look like:

From the stroll through a miniature pond cypress stand to learning about different wildlife monitoring projects taking place in the greater Everglades area, today was both super informative and just plain fun.

Introduction – New Education Intern

Hello everyone! My name is Shelby and I am the newest intern here at the swamp and I work in the education department. I am a native Floridian and only about a 2 hour drive from my home in Boca Raton, Florida. I am a graduate of Florida Atlantic University. Go owls!

My professional background is in animal care, working in wildlife rehab, and in the past I have worked directly with marine mammals and exotics. I am a self-proclaimed bird-nerd, and have a strong interest in raptors – especially vultures.

Here at Corkscrew, my time will be mostly consumed by teaching 5^th and 2^nd grade students who visit the sanctuary. I am very passionate about educating the public and especially kids about how important it is to conserve our wildlife. I truly believe that what you learn about you’ll grow to love, and if you love it, you’ll want to protect it! Just like I do. It’s up to us to show the next generation how valuable our environment is here. This is a great responsibility that I do not take lightly, but I love to have fun with the kids while we explore the swamp.

It has only been a couple of weeks since I’ve arrived and I have learned so much. Every day is a new adventure and there will always be more to learn out here. I hope you will enjoy reading about my adventure here, as I am lucky enough to stay until May 2018.

I can’t wait to share some of it with you!

Endless Opportunities

Within the first two and a half months as an intern here, I have been able to dramatically expand my experiences from different survey techniques to outreach. October was when we were able to start field work with aquatic fauna sampling. Since all of my prior experience has been with terrestrial or amphibious fauna, this was something completely new to me. To add another new aspect, there is a fair share of time spent in the office identifying, measuring and weighing the aquatic fauna that was collected in the field. This process is really interesting to me to be able to see what happens next with the data that was collected, which I find is a unique experience.

 

(Performing an aquatic fauna survey off the boardwalk)

Not only are we busy doing scientific research, but we have also been able to be a part of various Audubon activities such as Audubon Florida's annual Assembly. Here, we had a chance to network with many different Audubon employees throughout the state and attend talks on this years theme Water for Florida's Future. Another event we were able to attend was a science symposium at Big Cypress where we sat in on talks ranging from the hydrology of Florida, to effects of Hurricane Irma, and different flora and fauna being studied in the region. One of the speakers, Elizabeth Braun de Torrez, even offered for anyone to join her after the program to try to aurally detect the Florida Bonneted Bat, or any other bat species in the area. It was a great experience being able to learn more about this area through some of the current research being done, and it was amazing to be able to indulge in my interest of bats with Liz.

 

(Sunset over Fakahatchee Strand State Park waiting for the bats to emerge so we can detect their calls with Elizabeth Braun de Torrez)

There are so many more opportunities that I am excited for, they seem endless. Soon we will be performing Wood Stork nest success surveys from a fixed wing plane, attending a Cypress Celebration symposium, herpetofauna surveys, and prescribed fire.I cannot wait to see what exciting new opportunity will come up next!

-Kelsie (Research Intern)

2017 Fall/Winter Conservation Intern: Hayden Deakins

My suburban interests as a Nashville native were quickly transformed by the mountains of East Tennessee upon attending the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where I graduated with a degree in Environmental Studies in December 2016. It took me a few years in college to finally find that my career interests aligned more with resource management, and after graduation, I explored different aspects of the field while working for Tennessee State Parks, the National Park Service, and now for the Audubon society. My primary focus in former jobs has mostly centered around vegetation management, but I am currently excited about exploring other interests in wildland and prescribed fire as well as participating in monitoring projects with the Sanctuary’s research staff. While not sweating it out in the swamp during the weekdays, I spend my free time fishing, paddling, being a lord of leisure on the beach or cheering for the only successful professional sports team Tennessee currently possesses (go preds).

My first month or so at Corkscrew was spent exclusively in either preparing or recovering from Hurricane Irma. I actually arrived at Corkscrew 5 days prior to Irma's landfall in Southwest Florida, and instead of evacuating back to Tennessee, I sheltered up in the Blair Center during the hurricane. Once Irma had passed, I spent the remainder of September and the beginning of October clearing the damaged boardwalk of cypress duff and fallen branches, chainsawing slash pine and cypress trees that had fallen onto the boardwalk, and assisting Corkscrew's facilities staff in reconstructing broken parts of the boardwalk. Although these recovery efforts were not necessarily a part of my intended job duties, I gained some very valuable experience in operating and maintaining chainsaws in addition to operating a variety of carpentry tools to help re-open the short loop of the boardwalk for Corkscrew's eager yet patient visitors.

Right as the heat and humidity of September subsided into the cooler and drier conditions of October, I finally began performing my described job duties with Corkscrew's research staff in conducting aquatic fauna surveys at Panther Island and in the Central Marsh close to the Blair center. I had completed only 1 aquatic fauna survey at my prior job at Colorado National Monument, so gaining new experience and knowledge particularly relating to fish sampling was an especially interesting event for me. Near the end of October and into the beginning of November, I spent my time assisting senior resource manager Allyson Webb in applying herbicide to invasive species at Panther Island.

Although nearly 2.5 of the 6 months I will spend here at Corkscrew have absolutely flown by thanks to Hurricane Irma, I am excited to perform a variety of job duties in the near future, especially when it comes to assisting Corkscrew's resource staff in conducting prescribed fires across the Sanctuary's lands.

New Intern Kelsie

Happy Friday!

My name is Kelsie and I am the new Research Conservation Intern here at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary. I was born and raised in southern California, but once I graduated high school, I knew it was time for me to move elsewhere. I went to Arizona State University in Mesa, Arizona where I studied wildlife ecology and conservation. Since graduating in 2015, I have done seasonal work for the United States Forest Service in western Wyoming as a wildlife field technician, I was an outdoor education intern in Casper, Wyoming, and volunteered for a PhD candidate doing carnivore research in Belize, Central America. After spending a lot of my time working out west, I figured it was time to see some of what the southeast has to offer. I am very excited to be at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary for the next few months to learn as much as I can from the many knowledgeable mentors and supervisors here.

 

(Myself for the first week of fish sampling at Panther Island Mitigation Bank)

These first two months at Corkscrew have been a very unique experience. The weeks following hurricane Irma were filled with clearing trails, fixing the boardwalk, and getting things ready to reopen the sanctuary. We (the other conservation intern and I) then went straight in the field with the research team to start fish sampling. It was such a shock jumping off the swamp buggy for the first time, but following the lead of our field supervisor Mica, we were in the swamp all week. Since then, I have been with the research department continuing fish sampling (and processing the fish in the lab), maintaining our game cameras (and documenting the photos that were captured), doing wading bird surveys, and much more. I am excited to take you on my journey through my time here at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary.

 

(Sunrise at Panther Island Mitigation Bank)

My takeaways so far: jump into each experience with an open mind, I have already learned so much not only about Florida, but about myself; you really can do anything you set your mind to; and do what you can to see a sunrise in the swamp, it’s magical.

Until next time,

Kelsie

Estero Spotlight article written by Corkscrew Intern!

As part of his internship, Nick Charles wrote an article for a local magazine about his experiences. He chose to highlight the changes in hydrology seen from the boardwalk. Please check out his article at the link below. Great job Nick!

https://www.esterospotlight.com/news/2017-07-01/Community/Rising_and_falling_water_levels_change_habitats_at.html