This past May, I graduated from Delaware Valley University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Conservation and Wildlife Management. Considering that I graduated in May, of 2020, graduating into a pandemic was not the most welcoming experience. As a recent college grad looking to gain experience working in my desired field, it became very discouraging to see so very few jobs posted, and then to see those that you applied to be terminated (understandably so).
During my many job searches, I was lucky enough to find CritterFacts – a place where I could research what I was interested in and write about while reading other posted articles and facts to gain knowledge! Once the summer season rolled around, I stumbled upon the Student Conservation Association (SCA).
The SCA is America’s conservation corps. Members of the SCA protect and restore national parks, marine sanctuaries, cultural landmarks, and community green spaces in all 50 states. The SCA posts temporary positions that are in partnership with other organizations. I was so excited to have found the SCA and immediately applied to as many positions as possible.
A little while later, I received an email stating that I had been offered a summer internship with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Pittsburgh District where I would be conducting herpetofauna surveys with a couple of other interns. Within two weeks I was moved out to Pittsburgh and started my first field experience.
Our herpetofauna inventories consisted of species presence/absence surveys and habitat assessments. The information gathered during surveying allows for proactive conservation measures aimed to reduce or eliminate threats to these species to be established. This then minimizes the likelihood of a need for listing these species under the Endangered Species Act. To assess what species were present or absent, we needed to capture the specimens.
To do this, we installed pitfall bucket trap arrays and funnel traps. A pitfall trap array consisted of 4-5 buckets that we dug to be flush with the ground in either an “X” or “Y” arrangement. The buckets were connected with a fabric barrier so that a potential herp capture would run into the barrier and follow the lining until it eventually fell into a bucket at the end of the fabric.
Pictured above is what a typical pitfall array would look like. We also set out aquatic and terrestrial funnel traps. Aquatic funnel traps were placed in streams and baited with cat food. The intended captures for aquatic funnel traps were salamanders that were moving with the flow of the stream but we caught more frogs in these traps than salamanders. We also were outsmarted by raccoons who loved to steal the cat food bait quite frequently.
Below is a picture of an aquatic funnel trap in action. Terrestrial funnel traps were elongated aquatic funnels traps that were placed alongside the fabric barriers of the pitfall arrays. The intended capture for this type of trap was snakes. No snakes ever entered our terrestrial funnel traps, but they did fall into our buckets!
We ran surveys at four different USACE Lakes. Within each of these four main sites were three subsites for a total of 12 survey sites. All of the traps were checked every 24 hours to ensure that no animal would be stuck in a trap for longer than that timeframe. This also allowed us to keep up with the general maintenance of the traps.
Each day that the traps were checked, we noted the time and took some weather data such as the temperature (℃) and relative humidity. If we were to catch an amphibian or reptile, we would carefully take the specimen out of the trap and record some data. This data included species, length, weight, a photo voucher, and a quick toe clipping to record mark-recapture data.
It was really interesting to see how the weather or environmental conditions affected the number of captures. We found a general correlation between an increase in humidity and an increase in herpetofauna activity. In addition, even though our southernmost location was less than a two-hour drive from our northernmost location, it was crazy to see the variance in species caught depending on location and habitat type.
For example, dry habitats exhibited a large abundance of Eastern American Toads and Eastern Garter Snakes while more saturated locations exhibited more salamanders, Pickerel Frogs, and Red-Spotted Newts. We caught a total of 169 herpetofauna individuals representing 17 different species. Eastern American Toads, Green Frogs, and Pickerel Frogs were the most common species.
While we only intended to catch reptiles and amphibians, there were a few mammal bycatch surprises along the way. We recorded a total of 198 individual mammal captures – more than our herp number!
It was very common for small mice, voles, and moles to fall into our traps along with herps. We even found a baby opossum in a bucket early one morning and experienced a week where the same two baby chipmunks fell into the same bucket every day!
After the fieldwork came to an end, we spent a couple of weeks correlating and processing the data. It turned out that we encountered four species of special concern: the Valley and Ridge Salamander, Seal Salamander, Queen Snake, and the Eastern Box Turtle.
Species of special concern are species that may have a small distribution range and a declining number of observations over the years. These species may be more susceptible to the effects of pollution or habitat fragmentation making them affecting ecosystem health indicators.
When presenting our data to senior USACE staff, we were asked: So what? Why does this study matter? Why should it be continued? Why herps? Why should we care? Well, amphibians serve as amazing indicators of ecosystem health because they have permeable skin and complex life histories that make them sensitive to environmental disturbance and change.
If herpetofauna species are not doing well, that means that the ecosystem, in general, is not doing well and something needs to be done. Considering that amphibians are the group that is getting hit the hardest as we are currently undergoing a sixth mass extinction, this data has never been more necessary.
While I am once again back to searching for opportunities to join the workforce, I am so grateful to have had this field experience right out of college. It has taught me so much about myself and this field, and I cannot wait to take what I learned here and apply it to another position.
I wish that I knew of the SCA way before I graduated college, so if you are interested in conservation work at all, check out the many opportunities that the SCA has posted and, hopefully, you too will find the experience of a lifetime!
