Dolphins!!

Hey guys, I’m Claire and this semester I’m working with the Outer Banks Center For Dolphin Research (OBXCDR) under my mentor, Jess Taylor. The organization was founded in 2008, by Jess, and it is committed to the conservation of bottlenose dolphins here in the northern Outer Banks.

The dolphins that our research focuses on are the coastal ecotype that mainly inhabits the estuarine waters of the Roanoke and Croatan sounds in the summer months, June through August. To keep track of the population here, OBXCDR photographs the dolphins’ dorsal fins, which are unique to each individual (notches and chunks are taken out throughout a dolphin’s lifetime). Photos are then uploaded to FinBase, a national database developed and sponsored by NOAA to protect and manage our nation’s dolphin population. Photos are collected on dedicated surveys, which happen twice a month, or on the Nags Head Dolphin Watch tours, which only operate during the tourist season. Each time a sighting occurs, we also collect various environmental data such as surface water temperature, wind speed, direction the group is heading, activity state, location, etc.

Now this brings me to my research! I’m studying all the data acquired from 2008 to 2014 to see if there is an upper temperature threshold for the dolphins in the sound (basically seeing if the water ever gets too hot for the dolphins). Although this seems like a simple enough question, not a whole lot is known about whether there is a correlation between water temperature and dolphin numbers.

A lot of my research involves looking at spreadsheets and doing statistical analyses, but I also get to do the fun stuff, like going out on daylong surveys looking for dolphins and photographing them. They really are a charismatic bunch—they love to play and swim in the wake of the boat, sometimes they even jump out of the water or swim on their backs! I also volunteer at local events like the March of Dimes or the organization’s annual fundraising event, the Shrimp Cook Off (all you can eat shrimp for only $20!). There, I get to teach people about dolphins in general as well as my research. It’s a very rewarding experience that I’ll be very sad to leave come December, but who knows, maybe I’ll come back to volunteer next summer!

Bees, Butterflies, BMPs, oh my!

This semester I’m interning with the US Fish and Wildlife Service and focusing on pollinator best management practices. So what exactly are all these things? The US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) is an extremely large government organization, and the National Wildlife Refuges are part of it. I’m based in the Alligator River Wildlife Refuge Visitor’s Center in Manteo. The mission of the National Wildlife Refuges is to: “administer a nation

al network of lands and waters for the conservation, management, and where appropriate, restoration of the fish, wildlife, and plant resources and their habitats within the United States for the benefit of present and future generations of Americans.” Essentially, this is done through management of the environment.

Best management practices (BMPs) are well-designed tools that allow USFWS to manage the environment in the best possible manner and may target specific species, such as pollinators. Basically, pollinators are any type of organisms that pollinate plants. The best examples are bees, butterflies, bats, hummingbirds, moths, and beetles. And, if you’re up to date on your pollinator news, you know that our superstar bee populations are in rapid decline. They’ve created so much buzz that the White House even released a report and strategy in May 2015 to increase the bee and pollinator populations!

Leading this movement from Alligator River Wildlife Refuge is my mentor Becky Harrison. Becky is the Assistant Coordinator of the Red Wolf Recovery Program and the Southeast Regional Pollinator Coordinator. I couldn’t have asked for a better mentor. Through a series of long car rides, we’ve been able to get to know each other on a professional and personal level, and that is something I wasn’t sure if I could expect or not back in September. We’ve had a lot of ground to cover, but I think we make a good team.

The “Southeast Region” goes from NC to Texas and includes the Caribbean, but our focus for this project is in Northeastern North Carolina. We’ve spent the semester visiting Wildlife Refuges in the area, including Alligator River, Mackay Island, Mattamaskeet, Pocosin Lakes, Roanoke River, and the Edenton Hatchery, and assessing their management practices in terms of pollinators. Incredibly, all of these refuges have pollinator gardens and are ready to take on the challenge of increasing pollinator populations and education.

I consider myself lucky to have seen such a vast array of northeastern North Carolina environments, and not all students have been able to do that. Currently, I’m in the process of compiling all the information we collected from meetings with the various refuges. My final product will be a report highlighting pollinator management practices already in place and BMP recommendations for the future. I will also create a factsheet on pollinator BMPs in the refuges as well. Bee on the lookout!

This internship has given me experience in the office and the field, the perfect combination for someone who can’t sit still very long. I’ve met many members of the community here and worked on other pollinator projects as well, which was a huge bonus in the world of internships. Not only have I leaned about pollinators, BMPs, but I’m also able to identify more native plants in this area than I would have without this internship. And if I’ve learned anything this semester, it’s that we need to encourage planting native plants! It’s a simple way help your pollinators out and beautify the world around you.

There Might Actually be Nothing I Haven’t Done at my Internship

Hey y’all! I’m Brady Blackburn, one of the students studying at the Outer Banks Field Site this semester. All of us here are interning with several different organizations, and I think mine just might be in the running with Cinnamon’s for the “best internship of the year award.”

My internship experience is like a breakfast buffet. I get to sample everything I like…but I have to wake up early to go to it.

I’m splitting my time between two different organizations—North Carolina Sea Grant and The Nature Conservancy—because I gave Corey Adams, the internship coordinator here, the difficult task of finding something where I can hone my writing skills and work outside. Those two unfortunately don’t fit together very well.

At Sea Grant I’m blogging about our oyster aquaculture capstone project. I’m working with E-Ching Lee, their managing editor, to write articles every couple weeks about the process and results of our study. It is a great experience in the field that I eventually want to go into when I graduate. Better yet, I get to write and then turn around and go outside.

With the Nature Conservancy, I’m working with Aaron McCall, the northeast regional steward for North Carolina at the Nags Head Woods Ecological Preserve. I get to do a little bit of everything on this side of my internship—from trail maintenance to researching fresh water pond management practices.

Just last week, I cut trees along the power line that runs through the Conservancy’s property, re-painted a section of a shed, and worked on writing an advertisement article all in one day.

I’ve also gotten to help measure tree growth in the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge, build and install wells to measure water level in the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge, and much more.

So, as you can see, I’m getting the $10.98 all-you-can-eat special out of this internship experience.

I Won Best Internship of The Year Award (Unofficially)

So by this time, you all may be wondering why I’ve been writing these blog posts all semester. Short answer, it’s part of my job for my internship.

Longish answer, the hope is that by writing these posts, all of you who are interested in OBXFS get a snapshot of just what it is we’re doing over here in the eastern most part of the country. Spoiler alert: it’s some pretty awesome shenanigans.

Anyways, back to my internship. Lindsay and Corey Adams, the internship coordinator at OBXFS, placed me in the perfect internship while I was here. Working under John McCord at the Coastal Studies Institute (CSI), I’ve been spending the semester writing these (hopefully) informational blog posts, press releases for John and for the field site, and recreating the incredibly dated website for CSI.

I’m going to be completely upfront with you. When I found out I was revamping an entire website, I thought these people had lost their minds.

Fun fact: technology hates me. Always has and probably always will.

Luckily, John has been incredibly patient with me and has been super helpful in getting me in contact with people who actually know what they’re doing. So far, it’s been going pretty well with minimal yelling at the computer screen!

 

An awesome part of recreating the website has been interviewing the staff members at CSI and hearing about their research areas so that I can translate their work to specific pages on the site. The people here are absolutely incredible. All of them are involved in an array of projects and they pretty much make me feel like I need to get my life together and cure world cancer or something.

For instance, Lindsay our assistant director, is working on a gulf stream study to see if there’s potential for harnessing the energy of the current and using it as a renewable energy source. How cool is that?!

My hope is to help John finish the website by the end of the year and then launch the final product by January (fingers crossed.) I’m not gonna lie, there’s probably going to do a victory dance when this is over.

Another fun part has been these posts. I’ve actually had a really great time writing, putting my words online, and then hearing that people are actually reading my work. So that you’re reading this right now, whoever you are, is freaking awesome!

John has also been great to work for. The guy is involved in about 20 different things at any given time and he geeks out about stuff as much as I do, which I really appreciate. Except, a lot of his excitement stems from technology so more power to him…

And that is what I’ve been doing here at CSI all semester. It’s a lot of work, it’s been super stressful, but I’ve absolutely loved every second of it. Honestly, working for John and spending the semester doing all of this has made me fall back in love with writing. Papers upon papers at college can get kind of tedious, but writing about what I’m interested in has been…fun. This has been one of the few times where I’ve loved busting my butt day in and day out and not minded the hours spent staring at a computer screen.

At the end of the day, OBXFS has been a dream come true for me. I’m so lucky to have been given the opportunity to do what I’m passionate about. (Insert stepping off my soapbox)

Oh and a huge shoutout to Lindsay, Corey, and John for an awesome semester!

XOXO A Grateful and Happily Exhausted OBXFS Student

North Carolina Coastal Reserves Internship!

Let me tell you about my internship this fall! I am interning with Scott Crocker, northern site manager, at the North Carolina Coastal Reserve and National Estuarine Research Reserve.  This semester we have been working on a couple of different projects on Currituck Banks Reserve.  Two of the biggest projects have been monitoring invasive animals and water quality of the Outer Banks.

Back in September I started taking measurements from different access point along the sound from Nag’s Head to Corolla.  With the passing of Hurricane Joaquin we were able to see some dramatic changes in the sound near Kill Devil Hills and Kitty Hawk.  At the NC Wildlife boat ramp I usually measured salinity at around 5 parts per thousand (ppt).  However, after the hurricane passed us soon after I recorded a measurement of 19 ppt.  This is a huge different from the stable reading that I was recording.  We are not sure why this happened at this area.  We have some ideas of what could have happened but have not spent the time investigating the actual cause.  At Currituck Banks Reserve I usually found that the water salinity was around 2 ppt.  The salinity is low in the Currituck sound because it is far from any inlet.  After the hurricane passed we found a salinity of .4ppt.  This can be assumed that the influx of rain lowered the salinity.  At each sample site once a month I collect water sample that we later put in a preservative so that a lab at North Carolina State University can analyze the plankton in the sample.

Within the Currituck Banks Reserve there is a significant problem with feral swine.  These animals are responsible for destroying various types of habitat within the reserve.  This reserve is unique in that the boundaries extend from the sound all the way to the first line of vegetation on the beachfront.  This means that there are many different habitats within these boundaries.  Feral Swine destruction has been found in each type of habitat.  I have been using trail cameras to monitor the population.  Each hog has different markings and I have been able to distinguish most of the hogs in this area.

In summation, I love what I am doing here on the Outer Banks of North Carolina!  Even though I grew up on the coast of North Carolina it is remarkable to see how an almost untouched barrier island function! My experiences here have truly made me realize how dynamic barrier islands are!

Undergraduate Legal Internship

My name is Coker Holmes, and I am a Senior Environmental Studies and Political Science double major. I came to OBXFS because I plan on studying environmental law and was attracted to the environmental economics and coastal law and policy classes of the program. This semester I have been interning at the Law Offices of Hornthal, Riley, Ellis & Maland, L.L.P., in Columbia, North Carolina. Columbia is a small town of 900 in Tyrrell County, NC on the Scuppernong River. This internship has given me a great perspective on what it is like to practice general law in rural North Carolina.

My internship mentor is David Gadd, JD, the firm’s partner who runs the Columbia office. He has a B.S. in Forestry Management from NC State and a law degree from Florida State University with a concentration in environmental and land use law. He has taken me under his wing and given me education and experience in his practice specialties, including environmental law and zoning/land use, criminal defense, local government, real estate development/transactions, and civil litigation. Mr. Gadd is always thinking of new legal matters he can expose me to and has always been eager to answer questions and teach me the nuances and history of North Carolina law.

In the office I have gained experience helping to draft a plethora of legal documents. Everything from Wills, Powers of Attorney, LLC Articles of Organization, Restraining Order reductions, Guardianship appointments for minors, real estate deeds, permitting documents for local agricultural drainage districts, etc. has fallen on my desk at some point this semester. Watching Mr. Gadd work in court has also been very educational. I have observed everything from restraining order and divorce proceedings to juvenile hearings to DWI and possession defense.

In addition to the Field Site’s environmental law and economics curriculum, this internship has given me a broad exposure to the field of law. As an undergraduate it can be difficult to get exposure and education in the legal field. I started the semester with only basic knowledge and interest in environmental law, but this internship has broadened my interest within the legal profession and given me a good idea of what it’s actually like to practice various forms of law. This has been a great experience and resume-builder that I would recommend for any environmental student interested in law.

The Day I Realized My Internship Mentor is Freaking Awesome

So as I sit in the airport trying to get to New York for Fall Break, I’m wondering why in the world I left the comfort of the Outer Banks. Seriously, this sucks. I’m also reminiscing on the past week and figured I’d spill the beans on how freaking cool my internship was on Monday.

My mentor, John McCord, took pity on me, and my inability to do anything technological, and brought me along with himself, Nathan Richards (another super smart, super cool guy), and two graduate students for a trip to take pictures of a shipwreck on the beach. My thoughts- best mentor EVER. What I didn’t realize was just how cool his job and research are.

 

One words ladies and gents: photogrammetry.

 

 

Now, I dunno about you, but I had no freaking idea what photogrammetry is. Technical term for instagramming photos? Not quite.Turns out, John can take hundreds of pictures and create a 3D model of the shipwreck.

Insert: collective eyebrow raises and murmurs of being super impressed

The process for getting ready to make the model was actually fairly simple. We placed coded targets (each one has a certain design on it that makes them distinguishable from the others) around the shipwreck and took pictures from different angles at each target. John flew an unmanned aerial vehicle (aka kind of like a drone but don’t call it that around John) to capture the shipwreck from above. Once we took around 200 pictures, a software program was able to build the shipwreck from the ground up by finding common points in each of the pictures and molding them together. Kind of like a really weird puzzle. Except way cooler and more intense…

 

We had a huge crowd around us by the end of it because who wouldn’t be super curious about a remote controlled helicopter-type thing flying around? It sounded like a Star Wars movie. And the crazy thing is that the entire process took less than an hour. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Science is so cool.

John and Nathan are actually the first people to try this off the coast of North Carolina so like yeah, they’re pretty friggan awesome. The potential for what these models can be used for is also incredible. By going back to these sites repeatedly, researchers will be able to see how fast these wrecks are being buried, built back up, or affected by humans. Which will be a huge help to conservationists trying to manage these sites. So if you’re a history lover, your day just got a million times better.

So, yeah. Learned how to use a camera and learned how cool my mentor was in like 2 hours. Plus I got to admire technology from afar, which is pretty much the extent of my good relationship with all things electronic. Day well spent if I must say so myself. Thank you OBXFS!

XOXO   A student that’s feeling pretty freaking excited about life/the beach/fun stuff

Quinton’s internship with the North Carolina Coastal Reserve

My name is Quinton Grady and I’m a senior from Goldsboro, NC studying Environmental Studies at the University of North Caroina. This semester, I was lucky to be offered an internship working with the North Carolina Coastal Reserve. For background, the North Carolina Coastal Reserve (NCCR) is a division of the North Carolina National Estuarine Research Reserve. My mentor, Scott Crocker, is the NCCR Northern Sites Manager. There are three sites he manages: Kitty Hawk Woods–where his office is located and where i do the majority of my work–, Currituck Banks, and Buxton Woods. I have only visited Buxton once, and the other two sites I have accomplished alot of hands-on experience and research with. A usual day at the office is 8-5 and entails assisting Scott in  general tasks. A portion of the NCCR’s responsibility includes allowing hunters to utilize reserve property, with special restrictions and rules on top of North Carolina’s gameland rules. Since the start of hunting season, I’ve had around 5 hunters come in every day to gain a registration form and permit to hunt either or both Kitty Hawk Woods and Currituck Banks. This is actually a very important process, for the information I give them must coincide with the Coastal Reserve’s regulations to ensure that people are following rules and considering both safety and their environment the top priorities. Usual office work is included, from answering phone calls to keeping the office clean and accompanying Scott on trips and errands.

By far my favorite portion of my work with Scott is managing our various sites. It has taken my love for hiking and being in nature and expanded it even more. My largest task for the semester is compliling a photo journal of identified flora and fauna that I encounter amongst the site. Working on this project has been so fun, even on the days earlier in the semester when I was trudging through snakegrass in 90 degree heat. Working in the Kitty Hawk Woods’ maritime forest and the diverse salt marsh/maritime forest ecosystem of Currituck Banks has taught me alot about rare ecosystems, how to manage them, how to control invasive species, and how to be an environmental steward towards people and the living things around us. A hands-on approach to working has been a hugely informative and enjoyable experience with NCCR, and Scott is an incredibly fun and helpful mentor to work with. I honestly am going to be a little lost at the end of the month when I can’t go in to work on Mondays and Wednesdays anymore. Yet, the beauty of Kitty Hawk Woods and Currituck Banks will be there for me and anyone to enjoy. That is why this internship and environmental stewardship are important to me, to preserve these wonders for ourselves and our future generations.

Charlotte’s internship with Hornthal, Riley, Ellis & Maland, L.L.P.

Since I am interested in environmental law and policy and seriously considering law school after graduation, I was pleased to find out my internship would be working with a lawyer on a research project. My internship mentor, David Gadd, is a lawyer with Hornthal, Riley, Ellis & Maland, L.L.P. and tasked me with researching potential solutions to a wastewater treatment lagoon problem in Swan Quarter, NC. Although initially concerned about what my internship involving wastewater would be like, I have thoroughly enjoyed my internship and believe that it has given me a new perspective on environmental policy.

Swan Quarter is a small, rural, town near Lake Matamuskeet, about an hour and 15 minutes away from Manteo. Shortly after completion of the wastewater treatment facility within the town, large bubble appeared breaching the surface of the lagoons. While the bubbles appear relatively harmless and are a popular hangout spot for the local bird community, the North Carolina Division of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has been expressing concern over the bubbles and made it clear that they want the bubbles to be fixed. David is the law council to the town’s Sanitary District Board of Directors and thought researching this problem would be both a valuable learning experience for me and helpful to the community, and so my internship began.

The bubbles (called whales) in the lagoon liner formed when the peat soil under the lagoon decomposed, releasing gases. While this gas would ordinarily float off into the atmosphere, it has been trapped under the liner with no way to escape. After a while, there was so much gas under the liner exerting force against the liner, the whales formed. Although the whales are harmless now, the whales increase the risk of leakage from the lagoon and can become a big problem if left unattended, which is why DENR wants the “whale problem” solved sooner rather than later.

I began my internship with researching the problem, why it occurred, and some possible solutions. I also looked at the permits issued by DENR and the Division of Water Quality to assess whether any permit violations may arise from any of the possible solutions. I have now turned much of my efforts into looking at grants and loans to fund this project.

This internship has been much more interesting and valuable than I initially would have thought and it has given me a new perspective on environmental regulations. Before this internship I always had the perspective that environmental regulations and policy should be very strict with harsh punishments for noncompliance. I viewed environmental regulations from the perspective of the regulators, and had little sympathy for the regulated. While this is still true to an extent, my internship has made me look at environmental regulations and policy from the perspective of a small, rural town with very limited funds. Strict environmental regulations have real consequences for small towns that are just trying to improve the lives of their citizens. Small, rural towns like Swan Quarter need a lot of financial assistance to be able to be environmentally friendly and serve their people. Although my wastewater treatment internship was not the most glamorous, I really enjoyed it and believe that it has been a really valuable experience.

Jerome’s internship with the North Carolina Coastal Federation

If you would’ve asked me a year ago, whether I would be having some of the most fruitful and challenging times of my life at the Outer Banks Field Site, I would say you have no idea what you were talking about, but as this semester has proven, I would have been completely wrong. My name is Jerome Allen and I am a Junior Environmental Studies and Dramatic Arts major. This semester at the Outer Banks Field Site has been a wildly colorful experience filled with huge maturity and learning curves. From soaring in the sky over the islands to engaging with local storytellers, the Field Site breathes in the history of the Outer Banks and has served as a great connector between the students and community. Going off that notion, here at the Field Site, we are required to dive into an internship and attune our learning in the classroom with real-world experiences, problem solving, and interactions. This semester, I chose to work with the North Carolina Coastal Federation (or the Federation, for short), a non-profit advocacy organization focused on improving water quality for our coast.

At the Federation, I have had the opportunities to engage with independent projects and work alongside Sara Hallas on environmental education. I want to tell a story about my work with local middle school children.

On a day in late October, complimented with low winds and the soothing noises of the Pamlico Sound, the Federation hosted over 200 middle school students, divided into classes of 20; all arriving to the Manteo Office for the Federation in hourly increments between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. We had set up twelve stations and further separated the classes into groups of three to maximize the amount of independent and small-group learning with each station. The stations were about concepts such as salinity, biodiversity, and for my station, turbidity (the amount of suspended sediment in the water column). With coffee in one hand and a secchus disk in the other, I began my workshop by asking several questions such as: what is turbidity, why is it important, and how can we measure it. The students were equipped to answer the first two, and I taught them how to use a secchus disk in the Field to measure turbidity. The day ran smoothly and after leading seven workshops, I was charged with reflections and ideas.

I was mainly struck by the idea of passing on the significance of environmental conservation to the next generation. I want to uphold the notion that if children are instilled with great appreciation and understanding of environmental work, the field will expand and swell with great visionaries who can change the world for the better.

​The Federation has given me a myriad of lessons, but the importance of education has definitely molded my experience and will influence my future decision-making.