Internship
Biological Control Technician
Organization
United States Department of Agriculture
44 Pierrepont Ave
Potsdam, NY 13676
Duties
The Emerald Ash Borer is causing havoc amongst the U.S.’ ash tree populations. Our position was centered at SUNY Potsdam, but our sites were spread out greatly over Saint Lawrence County, such as in Robert Moses state park, and Jacque Cartier. There was myself and three other interns dealing with all the work we needed to do.
The average day during the internship was to go out in the morning and collect from traps, at specific sites and then freeze them when we get back to SUNY Potsdam. We would then go through a frozen trap sample under a microscope and collect and note any species of interest. The average length of a day was 4-8 hours at 20 dollars an hour.
Summary
This position was a perfect introduction to paid field work and in a mostly independent manner. This position was in conjunction with the U.S Department of Agriculture, where we went out into multiple sites where Ash trees are vulnerable to the invasive Emerald Ash Borer setting up traps and releasing parasitoids in attempts to combat the menace. We then took samples from the traps using microscopes we attempted to identify both Emerald Ash Borers and myriad of both local and released parasitoids to give important data to the USDA. There were multiple long days in the field (mostly wetlands). As well there were many days indoors over microscopes. This position grew my independent working skills in addition to my coordination with fellow interns. There were a few days that I went to all the sites in one day for a pseudo-road trip instead of a more normal day, releasing parasitoids. This position has definitely informed me greatly about what I want to do in the future.