Professional Development
Interns help protect precious placesAs an interpretive guide on the Bay of Fundy, Madeleine Doiron helps ensure huge flocks of shorebirds can access the area's unique ecology on their southward migration. Further west, Allison Krause is helping conserve Manitoba Tall Grass Prairie, one of the most endangered ecosystems in the country. LINDA WHITE |
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 [ 2006-08-16 ] |
They're among 18 college and university students selected to work as Shell Conservation Interns for the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC). Together with other interns, they've been gaining practical field experience on lands protected by NCC by performing a variety of stewardship tasks.
"It's such an amazing show to see the huge flocks of birds in the thousands fly in here at the same time," Doiron says of her internship at NCC's Johnson's Mills Shorebird Interpretive Centre in New Brunswick.
The area hosts about 2.5 million Semipalmated Sandpipers during their migration from the Arctic, where they breed each winter. Up to 95% of the world's population of shorebirds and their ecology depend on the resources of the tiny mud shrimp found only in the mudflats of the Bay of Fundy and Gulf of Maine.
In addition to collecting scientific data relating to the shorebirds and their ecology, Doiron helps educate thousands of visitors on the ecology of the mudflats, stressing the importance of not disturbing the shorebirds as they roost on the beaches at high tide.
"It's a critical period for the birds. They're on site for two weeks and need to double their weight in that time in order to continue their migration," Doiron says. The Universite de Moncton graduate is completing her Master's at Universite du Quebec a Montreal and hopes to work in avian ecology in the Maritimes.
Landing the internship allowed Doiron to work in her native province in her chosen field. NCC is a national non-profit organization that takes a business-like approach to the conservation of plant and wildlife habitat. Together with its supporters, it has conserved more than 765,000 hectares of land on more than 1,700 properties across Canada since 1962.
Shell Canada and NCC have been partners in land conservation for nearly 25 years. Shell has donated $4 million in financial resources, volunteer support and land and mineral rights to NCC and recently committed $900,000 to the Shell Conservation Internship Program over the next three years.
Internship activities range from conducting bird inventories and removing invasive plants to managing threatened species and teaching others about wildlife conservation.
RARE FLOWERS
In southern Manitoba, Krause has been surveying vegetation on valuable remnants of Tall Grass Prairie. Her work includes preserving such rare flowers as Small White Lady's Slipper and the Western Prairie Fringed Orchid. "It's really neat to see this area, which doesn't exist anywhere else," says the University of Manitoba graduate.
"The work is sometimes tiring, with the heat, the bugs and the rough terrain, but it becomes worthwhile when you come across a fox den of a perfectly formed bird's nest with bright blue eggs inside," Krause says. "It makes you realize that conserving these fragments of habitat is important for the future of the animals and plants that make it their home."
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SHELL CONSERVATION INTERNSHIP
- The Shell Conservation Internship, launched in 2002, is a partnership between the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) and Shell Canada Ltd. It gives university and college students in environmental science the opportunity to gain practical field experience on properties protected by NCC.
- The 16-week internships generally begin in early May and run through late August and are open to currently enrolled or recently graduated students. Job descriptions and application forms for next year will be posted at www.conservationinterns.ca in early 2007.
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