Hello! My name is Shaylee Church and I am one of the spring 2018 interns at St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge.  I grew up in Stoughton, Wisconsin, in a family that spent a lot of time outdoors.  Whether I was canoeing through the boundary waters, helping my dad train our black labs for hunting, or learning how to make maple syrup with my uncles, I was always finding something new to explore outside.  All of these experiences and my desire to learn more about animals led me to the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point to pursue a degree in Wildlife Ecology: Research and Management, where I hoped to be in a job working with wildlife or doing environmental education. 

During college, I was a member of our student chapter of the Wildlife Society and chose to be a co-leader for the undergraduate run project studying gray squirrels.  We live-trapped eastern gray squirrels during the winter months, taking measurements on weight, age, sex, and giving each squirrel an ear tag to monitor individual activity through our trapping grids.  We also presented our research through at a variety of professional conferences in Wisconsin. Outside of my own research project, I was always excited to help other projects whether it was working with small mammals, white tailed deer, black bears, or woodpeckers. 

After my junior year in college, I decided to take an internship at Northwoods Wildlife Rehabilitation Center, where I was able to help care for injured and orphaned wildlife and give educational programs to the public.  We took care of all wildlife, big and small, ranging from hummingbirds, porcupines, great horned owls, painted turtles, fawns, raccoons, and many more.  While I loved caring for wildlife, I always enjoyed my days spent giving tours of our center to the public and working with the educational raptors and turtles at our center.   

I graduated from college in May 2016 with my degree, and chose to take a break to spend time at home with my family, helping my grandma take care of my grandfather who had alzheimers. 

When I started looking for jobs to get back into my field, I came across a listing for the environmental education internship at St. Marks, and accepted the internship for fall 2017.  Every day I was learning something new, whether it was about the refuge, wildlife, plants, or how to be a better educator through working with school groups. Aside from working with all of the wonderful staff in the visitor center, I was given the opportunity to help the bio team with some of their work with the Red-cockaded Woodpeckers.  After realizing how much I enjoyed helping with the RCW’s, I knew that the biology internship would be the perfect opportunity for me to experience both sides of working at a wildlife refuge and help me decide whether I wanted to focus on environmental education or on becoming a biologist. 

I am so excited to be back at the refuge and have the opportunity to continue helping with the RCW’s and Frosted Flatwood Salamanders. I haven’t had any experience with salamanders before and am so grateful for the opportunity to learn more about wildlife through this internship.  Thank you!