Location: Toucan Ridge Ecology and Education Society
Open Period: Open on a rolling basis
Duration: Sessions may be 2 to 5 weeks, with 4 weeks recommended
Hours per Week: 35 – 40
Cost: $289USD/Week

Description:
The Toucan Ridge Ecology and Education Society, located in the Maya Mountains of Belize, currently has apprenticeship spots open for our Tropical Herpetofauna Technician Internship Program.

Internships are held at the T.R.E.E.S Hosting Center, a research and education center in the Maya Mountains of Belize. The center is operated by the Toucan Ridge Ecology and Education Society (T.R.E.E.S), a small grassroots not-for-profit organization whose mandate is to conserve Belize’s natural and cultural heritage through education, conservation, and research. One way in which we meet our mandate is through hosting interns. By training international and local Belizean students in environmental and wildlife management, field research techniques and data collection protocols, knowledge on the biodiversity of Belizean fauna and flora will be gained. This knowledge will then be compiled into peer-reviewed publications, Belizean government reports and regulations, field guides, and other publications that will increase the global visibility of Belizean fauna and flora and aid in their management and ultimately their conservation.

The goal of this internship is to give the student various experiences in tropical herpetofauna studies that will aid the student in developing their skills for a variety of future education and employment opportunities. The main component of the project will be to work with Ecorana tutors and T.R.E.E.S staff in establishing long-term herpetofauna monitoring projects (habitat characterization, observational surveys, and mark-recapture specifically for frogs and turtles). These baseline data will contribute to future ecological studies on frog and turtle populations present on the T.R.E.E.S property and elsewhere in the adjacent protected areas in the Maya Mountains.

This training opportunity focuses primarily on herpetofauna (reptile and amphibian) census techniques, including acoustic and visual encounter surveys, turtle radio-telemetry, and amphibian habitat creation as well as other research projects. In the turtle radio telemetry project, interns will be trained in the use of telemetry equipment. They will track the movements of tagged turtles in both aquatic (streams and wetlands) and terrestrial (jungle areas) environments, with a focus on responses to sudden flooding conditions.

Requirements:
We are looking for interns who are independent yet willing to work in a team environment. Applicants should have a certain level of herpetofauna identification skills and should be interested in improving their techniques for proper identification and survey methods applicable in the tropics. Applicants should have a desire for learning about the incredible biodiversity of Belize through systematic field surveys and data collection. This internship is perfect for budding biologists/ecologists of any level that wish to pursue a career or education in the field. The internship is meant as a resume and skill builder to help interns get experience in the field. It will help improve techniques for proper identification and survey methods in the tropics.

Internship Responsibilities:
– Learn tropical herps by sight and sound in the Maya Mountains.
– Learn and perform a variety of herp surveys that will be most adequate to answer project questions, including habitat characterization, visual-acoustic encounter surveys along transect lines and as time-constrained search, capture-mark-recapture, etc.
– Handling of reptiles and amphibians caught and field data collection of size, sex, breeding status, species I.D.; other sampling techniques including swabbing for fungal infection, and various tagging methods for mark-recapture.
– Lead a White-lipped Mud Turtle movement, habitat use, and response to flooding study using radio-telemetry.
– Monitor created habitat for breeding amphibians and conduct population assessments of hatchling mud turtles using funnel traps; maintain created habitat through invasive plant pulling, monitoring of water levels, creative solutions for modified habitat improvement, etc.
– Maintain a captive breeding and head starting Blue-spotted Treefrog population under biosecurity protocols.
– Work with T.R.E.E.S researchers, international collaborators, and other interns on the development of protocol design and write protocols for continuing field work and data collection.
– Implement protocols in the field using the help of T.R.E.E.S staff and Ecorana tutors to find the best places to set-up long-term monitoring locations.
– Be trained in the use of GPS to navigate to and mark survey locations.
– Possibility of mapping frog/turtle habitat using ArcGIS if intern has ability to use ArcGIS software.
– Share knowledge with locals and with other fields.
– Complete a short 4–5-page summary report that will help to establish future research protocols.
– Depending on involvement in project, may have opportunity to collaborate on future publications, therefore learning to enter data in a systematic manner and compile it into a scientific report with introduction and literature review, methods, results (including basic statistical analysis), and discussion using peer-reviewed scientific articles.
– Interns will assist with creating captions for social media posts to engage and update followers on what has been going on at the field station and various projects that are being done.

Costs:
The internship fee includes room and board (meals included Monday-Friday), full access to lab equipment, and training by professional on-site biologists. Food is a combination of self-catering in a communal kitchen with ingredients provided as well as prepared meals, depending on whether we have other groups on site. Lodging at the research center signifies a shared dormitory-style rustic cabins with other same sex interns. This comes with full access to other facilities such as showers, restrooms, and kitchen. The nature of this program allows interns to carry out a majority of the work independently after the training period is done.
We are hoping to expand our internship program beyond North America. Citizens from Latin America and the Caribbean will be charged at a discounted rate of 50%. Belizeans will get another discount. For more information, kindly email Scandia Cruz with the email provided above.

Schedule:
Interns are required to work for 35 hours/week minimum. The typical schedule would include daytime work from Monday to Friday. The work schedule runs from Monday through Friday. The majority of the transect monitoring is done at night from 7:00 pm to 10:00pm. For turtle tracking using radio telemetry, this is done during the day. Other projects such as habitat restoration or maintaining captive breeding grounds are also done during the day. Weekends are free time for interns; therefore, you can do as please (travel, hike, relax). No refunds on food and lodging will be available if the intern decides to leave the station. Projects may sometimes run into the weekend; in which case the days will be returned to them during the week.
The intern supervisor(s) will be responsible for designing a schedule with the intern each week that is reasonable and includes work on the various projects.

Application:
For more information on our organization and facilities please visit our website: www.treesociety.org. To apply, please click “Register”. For any questions, please contact jmartinez@treesociety.org.