LDWF Final Week

The final week of the internship included time with Nikki, the biologist who works the wildlife vet, time duck banding, and my final times with the gopher tortoises. When I was with Nikki, I did the usual looking at pig stomachs, cleaning out stinky refrigerators, and talking about life as a wildlife vet. One day I was lucky enough to go duck banding one more time, but sadly we did not net any ducks. Those in charge of laying the feed out dumped the feed slightly out of range, so no ducks were caught unfortunately. My last day on the job happened to be the best that week, since we got to release gopher tortoises into their pins and cuddle with a bobcat. No joke.
My mentor works with this family of wildlife nuisance people, who also work with wildlife on the sets of television shows and movies. They take care of some of the gopher tortoises before they are released in their pins. We had to go to their home to pick up the tortoises, so we got to see all their other cool animals including alligators, a whole bunch of snakes, raccoons, wolf dogs, a bobcat, and a trained nutria.

Older fully trained raccoon

new baby raccoons

BOBCAT!!!

baby alligator snapping turtles for USFW

other federally protected turtle that they are holding for USFW

After seeing all the awesome animals, we went to finish the tortoise pin and release to of them into it. It was funny watching them interact with each other, since they were two males. I had never seen two stranger tortoises together before. The smaller one of them was the one who wanted to fight, while the larger tortoise just wanted to do his own thing. It was great being able to witness two tortoises being placed back into the wild, where hopefully they will help increase the species and population. 

This internship has allowed me to meet a bunch of great and funky people, while gaining all around experience and a basic understanding of how a state government program operates. My mentor, Keri, was awesome! She worked hard to get me with people for all walks in the agency, so that I could achieve my goals. I wish the internship could have been a bit longer, but I'm grateful to everyone involved for letting me participate in this great opportunity. I'm going to miss everyone, even though it feels like we started only yesterday!

Thank Everyone!