A guest post by Luke Burns about his PSY 495 internship

My name is Luke Burns, I am a graduating Animal Behavior major with a minor in Environmental Studies. For the Spring of 2020, I interned with the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge (RCNWR) in Wells, Maine. My internship position was under the Refuge’s Wildlife Biologist, Jeffrey Tash, who had me on his team for his on-going New England Cottontail Restoration project. His office and funding was through the Wildlife Refuge, but most of our work was  happening at the Wells Reserve, which neighbored the refuge’s land on two sides.

Most of my work was collecting field data with/for Jeff. It started in January with primarily setting out and maintaining feeder sites and trail cams in the Wells Reserve. The above image is me standing over one of our four feeder sites that were set in the previous Winter. Each feeder site had a trail cam that I would swap batteries and SD cards to bring back and check trail cam photos with Jeff for rabbits or other animals (Deer, opossum, raccoons, predators). Also the ‘shell chamber” has a wooden floor and I would leave rabbit chow as an incentive and supplement for rabbits to eat, but these sites were not made to be reliable food sources. They were set to be attractive, but not relied on by any animal. Also in the Winter and early Spring I would look for rabbit tracks or signs in the snow (Browse, pellets, prints, fur). The feeder sites and camera were moved when predators were seen on trail cams and seemed to learn to stalk the sites waiting for rabbits. A Fisher was seen early March on cam and forced us to pick up the feeders.

Towards the end of my time on-site (Mid-March), I had an idea with Jeff to set out trail cams in more popular areas of the reserve without feeder sites, and see how much “traffic” there is without influence. As an idea of baseline data, we wanted to get an idea of population to see how the New England Cottontail population is growing this spring (2020). I may not see the results in person but I am staying in contact with Jeff and the Reserve after graduation. I also helped a small amount with many other aspects of the project off-site working with the public and private landowners in the surrounding towns.

My RCNWR internship was definitely a better experience than I was expecting and I’m thankful for the experience I had with it. The part that best helped me learn was seeing how multi-disciplined the project was as I became more involved with it. The project was bigger than just the Refuge and the Reserve. It reached many different town landowners and workers, several zoos in New England helped raise Cottontail kits, Maine and U.S. Fish and Wildlife were involved with land and species protection. To be in a position to see so many different people have a role in the project’s success was very interesting to learn about.

Also, I enjoyed being a part of a long-term project that may continue after my time involved and will continue to grow and succeed. I enjoyed knowing that my field work and data will be put into a larger source that will be used to help the general public. I feel after this internship that I would be more interested in finding work with a long-term project that I can help see succeed. Research was never something I seriously considered until starting here and it is something I could see myself doing going forward as a career.

Talking to my boss and his colleagues also showed me how important flexibility and strength in many fields would be important and useful going forward. There are many directions that field research can go into that I have not seriously considered like GIS, data analysis, and other qualitative skills. My position has seriously helped me grow and find a career path I would be excited to go down in the near future.

Our thanks to Luke for sharing his experience with us. All Animal Behavior majors complete at least one internship, PSY 495, as part of their degree and work closely with a faculty supervisor as part of the experience. For more information about the animal behavior major at UNE, please visit: https://www.une.edu/cas/psych/bs-animal-behavior