Hello.  My name is Caitlin Walker and I am one of the Summer 2019 interns here at St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge.  I was born and raised in Charleston, SC and have always had a passion for the outdoors.  At a young age I was introduced to camping, hunting, and fishing.  For those experiences, I began to have a greater appreciation for our natural world.  This appreciation has led me to also take up wildlife and natural photography in my free time.

When it came time to choose a path for college, I knew that I wanted to spend my time working with the natural world and protecting it for future generations to come.  I am currently attending Clemson University, for Wildlife and Fisheries Biology, where I will be starting my senior year when I get back in the fall.  Surrounding our campus is 17,500 acres of forest, known as the Clemson Experimental Forest, which is dedicated to research, education, and demonstration for the benefit of society.  In this forest, we are able to practice the skills that we learns about in the classroom, whether it is electroshocking a stream, measuring trees in a given stand, going on a herpetology field trip, or learning some of the different trees that inhabit the forest.  

While being at Clemson, I have also been a part of a few projects.  My freshman year I worked on a project in cooperation with the National Wild Turkey Federation.  We were able to capture turkeys using rocket nets, place telemetry collars on them, and then track them via VHF.  Also this past spring, myself and a few students worked with a gated community on a deer density project.  The community believed that they had a large density of deer on their property and wanted us to come out to check it out.  So for two nights we preformed spotlight density counts to get a better understanding of the density of deer in the area.  I then did the calculations and found that they had a density of 12 acres/deer, which is a bit higher than the recommended 15-20 acres.  We recently presented our finding to the community board who was going to share the information with the community.  

Last summer, I was an intern with the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR).  I worked on two of their wildlife management areas, Donnelley WMA and Bear Island WMA, in the ACE Basin.  A lot of the work that I did there was related to managing the property, with included a lot of tractor work.  That was something I hadn’t previously done so it was a great skill to learn.  When I wasn’t on the tractor, I could be found managing my dove banding sites or in the office working on counting and identifying the nests of wading birds in different rookeries via aerial photos.  I was also able to go out a few nights and capture and band mottled ducks on the air boat.  While I really enjoyed this position, I was interested in experiencing a job that was more heavily focused on the biological side of this career field, which led me to this position. 

Already in this first week, I have used spotting scoped to locate and read the bands of adult RCW, used the peeper pole to see in the nests, and was able to band my own baby red-cockaded woodpecker.  I have also already seen ample wildlife including a Florida softshell turtle and Pinkie the American Flamingo that has been calling the refuge home the past few months.  I cannot wait to see what else this internship has in store and I thank you for creating this amazing opportunity.