Today marks my final day as a wildlife intern at Sky Island Alliance, and I couldn’t be more grateful for the work I’ve gotten to do here. I joined SIA over three years ago, when I was a freshman at the University of Arizona looking for a remote position in the conservation field. When I found out about this internship at a job fair, I couldn’t believe my luck! It was exactly what I needed, and I quickly realized that it was a job I wanted to have much longer than one semester.
While I had little to no experience with species ID at that point in my life, I knew I was in good hands with Eamon Harrity and Meagan Bethel, who were both incredibly patient and helpful. Being from Oklahoma, I had a lot to learn about Arizona species (I had never even heard of coatis!), but I quickly picked up on how to tell key species apart thanks to the SIA team.
I also learned so much about different applications like Camelot and Microsoft Access, neither of which I had used before. I even got to join a field trip to collect wildlife cameras along the border. It was fascinating to finally see the landscape I’d been staring at on screen for years!
While I wish I could continue working with SIA, I’ve decided to study for my Master’s in Global Biodiversity Conservation at the University of Sussex in England. My time with SIA was no doubt a contributing factor for my acceptance to the program, and I look forward to telling everyone in my course about SIA and all the amazing work they do. I’m very excited for this next chapter in my life, but I will always miss my quiet evenings of processing Sky Island wildlife videos and never failing to laugh when an animal walks right up to the camera and sniffs it!