This month, I have started working on my first outreach project! I have been curating outreach materials for an upcoming event called Ohio Bat Fest. I have attended this community event for the past two years and I absolutely adore it. There are booths set up from different organizations in the area to share information to the community about bat research, the importance of bats in the ecosystem, and how individuals can help bats in their own backyards through native flower planting and bat boxes. The event also has activities for kids such as origami bat making and coloring pages to teach future generations the importance of bats and to help destigmatize the public’s perception of bats.
I had planned on reaching out to the organizers of Bat Fest to inquire about having a USFWS booth at this year’s event. As I was sitting down to write them an email, we got a phone call from them asking us to be a part of the event! It turns out the person on the phone was my TA from college--what a small world! I have decided to create my informational booth about the Indiana bat, which is an endangered species that the biologists in my office have been working with for many years. I am looking forward to creating a poster board showing all of the amazing work that has been done to protect these bats, and I can’t wait to be able to share our work with the community.
As I mentioned in my previous blog post, I have been assisting with moth and butterfly surveys at the Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio to determine what species are present in the remnant prairie located on base. As monarch butterfly migration begins, we have joined the Monarch Watch program to aid in migration research. Last week, I had the opportunity to tag my first monarch! We received a set of tagging stickers with specific codes on each to identify where and when each monarch was tagged. Researchers in monarch migration sites in Mexico will search for monarchs with these tags to track the migration of these butterflies.
I have also been assisting with some office organization by going through old files to enter to our online database. It hasn’t been the most exciting work, but a lot of the papers I have been reading were created before I was born. There have been people working on protecting endangered species for decades, and seeing this old work has made me feel connected to something larger. There have been people who care before I was alive, and there will be people who care after I’m gone.
I think one of the best parts of my internship has been being able to meet so many people from all different parts of the country who care so deeply for the wellbeing of our planet and the species we share it with. It’s very easy for me to get caught up in climate doom and a nihilistic view of the future of our planet from increasing fossil fuel use and unsustainable business and developmental practices. However, this internship has shown me how to be hopeful for our future. There are so many people out there who care for our world and have dedicated their lives to protecting and preserving the amazing biodiversity all around us. I get to work with the local community to educate people about the work we do to conserve bats, the community across North America to research monarch butterfly migration, and the community of scientists that came before me. I feel so incredibly lucky for this opportunity, and I can’t wait to see what comes next