Hi everyone! My name is Alyssa Corder and I am currently a Pollinator Conservation and Outreach intern at the MN-WI Ecological Services field office in Bloomington, MN. I started on July 1st, and throughout my first two months I have had many opportunities to explore.
I have participated in five Rusty Patched Bumble Bee (RPBB) surveys these past two months. In these surveys we spend 30 minutes meandering the fields, marking what species of bumble bees we see, with a hopeful emphasis on the RPBB. So far I’ve been able to find three RPBB, on three different survey days. It has been amazing to see an endangered species in person, and to see that they still have populations in Minneapolis!
I also had the opportunity to go to North Dakota to meet some of their Ecological Services biologists. We went there from July 10th through 12th, and we spent one full day out in the field looking for Dakota Skippers (DASK). That day we got to see the different types of DASK habitats and even got to see a few in the wild! Within the first two months of my internship I’ve been able to see both the threatened DASK and the endangered RPBB. I’m very thankful that I’ve seen both, and hopefully in the future we will see more!
On July 20th, I got to participate in the Latino Nature Fest hosted by the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge. It was a great day to experience outreach with the public and more diverse communities. There I got to work at the welcome desk, where I saw hundreds of excited families enter and leave the festival. In July, I also participated in the Midwest Intern Workshop. Because I went early on in my internship it gave me an extensive overview on the departments and subdivisions within the US Fish and Wildlife. I got to see many presentations from both staff and fellow interns, which educated me on the many opportunities and research that is currently being done.
Over the month of August, I have been developing flyers and outreach tables for the next couple months. I created informational posters for my core species (Rusty Patched Bumble Bee, Dakota Skipper, and Karner Blue Butterfly) and had my first table at the Hmong Market in St. Paul, MN. I have four more tables at local farmers markets in September and October that I am also looking forward to! In August I also participated in Monarch tagging and took a tour of the MN Zoo’s conservation programs. There we got to see the Dakota Skipper and Poweshiek Skipperling rearing facilities, along with the freshwater mussels and turtles rearing facilities.
Overall, I have had an amazing first two months with the MN-WI Ecological Services. I have met so many people, and have learned so much about pollinator conservation and the US Fish and Wildlife Service. I am very excited for the future, and the opportunities that I will have over the next 4 months!
