Hello everyone! It’s been a while since my last blog post so let’s catch up on what I have been doing since then. So, I think I should start with the fact that we are in March of 2023, wow! This fellowship has really flown by, and I can’t believe that I am so close to the end of my fellowship. I think the last time I wrote it was towards the end of summer 2022 and I am going to do my best to briefly catch everyone up on what I have done since then.
In November 2022 I attended The Annual Wildlife Society Conference in Spokane, Washington and presented a poster on the CCC Fellowship with a focus on my study area (Aransas NWR). After that, things were quiet until December 2022 when I went out with the Zone Assistant Biologist to assist in Surface Elevation Table readings where I mainly helped with well and surface salinity and soil core sampling. Although the 5 refuges we went to are within the same ecoregion each one can be different in their topography, the composition of vegetation/wildlife species, and management practices and this is the beauty of the Texas coast. All beautiful, but unique in their own way. Before I knew it I was trading my hip high muck boots for a plane ride in January 2023 to the National Conservation Training Center in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. Here I attended a workshop for the Resist-Accept-Direct framework, where the Fellows and I took notes, networked, and had great discussions. The last event that I want to touch on came in February 2023 and that was the Fellows meeting here at Aransas NWR. We hosted the fellows and some of the supervisors here at the refuge and had a few days of pulling together a final report. It was great having everyone you work with in your “backyard” so to speak.
I have had so many experiences and opportunities that I never that I would have but thanks to HAF and USFWS I have been able to learn and grow in ways I never imagined. The next time I write will be my last blog post and in a way a sign off as I hope to begin my next journey.
