The View,
Margaret O'Gorman

I really like and support New Jersey’s Community Colleges. I think they are a great resource for all of us who live in the state - for those who cannot commit to full-time education, those who seek to continue their education through night classes or those who maybe need a second chance to improve their grades before moving on to university. Over the years I’ve taken classes at both Burlington County College and Mercer County Community College in subjects ranging from HTML to bicycle repair and maintenance.

So, when our beloved donor and supporter Mrs. Campbell offered us a stipend to help a local student advance their academic career by spending the summer with us as an intern, we naturally turned to Mercer County Community College. We wanted to provide an experience for a student that would be useful not only academically but economically as well.

And so the Aquila Summer Internship was born. Working with Professor Laura Blinderman, we developed an application process and advertised the internship to students enrolled in biology and other science courses. Each student applicant wrote an essay to express their interest in the subject and their hopes for what this summer experience would give them.

At the beginning of June, John Braun, a student at Mercer County Community College joined us. John is a former organic farmer with a deep love and knowledge for the outdoors, a practical mindset necessary for all professionals working in the field and confidence to navigate the highways and byways of our state – another necessary skill for field-based biologists.

The Aquila Internship spanned ten weeks from early June to mid-August. Every week John explored a different aspect of our work and accompanied a different CWF staff member on the job. During the course of the internship, John was immersed in the following projects:

• The Private Lands Project that works with farmers to grow habitat for rare and imperiled species.
• Our Beachnesting Bird Project that protects and conserves populations of piping plover, black skimmer and least tern who share our beaches with us during the summer.
• The Environmental Education work that brought him to Sedge Island with the winners of our Species on the Edge: Art and Essay Contest.
• Our Osprey Project that monitors the recovering osprey population in the state and continues to create habitat along the bays and rivers of southern New Jersey.
• The Biotics Project that ensures rare wildlife sightings are gathered and input in a consistent and correct way to feed mapping tools like the Landscape Project.
• Our partnership with ENSP that supports work on bog turtle restoration projects.
• Our Bat Education Initiative to build and install bat houses throughout the state to provide habitat for summer bat roosts.

Our Development office also received assistance from John who helped organize and mail the important thank you letters that we send to our members for every contribution they make to us. John represented us at the Burlington County Earth Fair and at the Northern Open House meeting to promote the state’s Wildlife Action Plan.

John kept track of all these experiences on our blog . His enthusiasm for the work and his willingness to jump in and help out with all and any tasks endeared him to our biologists and to other partners who he interacted with along the way.

We recently said goodbye to John and thanked him for all his hard work for us. We wish him well in his career and hope that he continues on his path towards working in the conservation community.

We want to repeat this internship next summer and introduce another student to the fascinating world of rare wildlife in New Jersey. Through this internship, we not only help a student but we were more effective with an extra pair of hands helping our wildlife.

Mrs. Campbell has challenged us to raise the money for next year’s internship. She has pledged to give us $1,500 if we can raise the additional $3,500 needed to support this program.

If you would like to support the Aquila Internship, provide a career-enhancing experience for a worthy student and help Conserve Wildlife Foundation carry out its mission, please contact Patricia Shapella at (609) 292-3707. You can apply your donation to the Aquila Internship or as a general contribution in support of our work.

• First Page
• Shorebird Stewards Report
• The View by Margaret O'Gorman
• Days of the Peregrine
• A Better Bat Gate
• Women and Wildlife: A Special Recognition
• Calendar of Upcoming Events
• Archive of past issues
  

Staff
Margaret O'Gorman
Executive Director

Michael Davenport
GIS Specialist

Maria Grace
Education and Outreach Manager

MacKenzie Hall
Private Lands Biologist

Brian Henderson
GIS Specialist

Debbi Nichols
Executive Assistant

Todd Pover
Beach Nesting Bird Project Manager

Patricia Shapella
Director of Development

Larissa Smith
Assistant Biologist

Ben Wurst
Habitat Program Manager