Of all the activities I’ve participated in during my 20 years with the DWR, I would have to say that banding birds is my favorite. Banding often requires 24 hours of straight work, but it is such a rush, that you just don’t notice the lack of sleep or food!

Topper actually stood still and sniffed the air while I saddled him up and loaded gear on the pack horse. It took a little time to get things ready for the four-mile trip to the cabin. Although Topper stood very still and assessed his new surroundings, he looked a little nervous. That should have been my first clue that this was not going to be an ordinary trip.

It didn’t take long to discover that stripers could reproduce without limit in their new environment. The striper population was out of control and very hungry. It was obvious that we couldn’t feed the millions of fish produced, and adding more forage was not the answer.

Usually, we don’t handle or move young animals because their mothers can smell our scent and become afraid of their offspring. In this case, we chose to move any fawns we found. We knew if they weren’t moved, they would certainly be killed by the swathers.

“Just get in there! Keep your head low. And remember to watch out for horns, hooves, elbows and flying pronghorn.” Everyone had advice.
“What have I gotten myself into?” I wondered. I was standing behind Elison, a local hunter and volunteer. This was his tenth pronghorn roundup, and he was just as excited as ever. This was my first roundup, and I was beginning to…

For my first field job I worked as a wildlife tech for a grad student in Northern New York. We were studying a threatened turtle species called the Blanding turtle. It was my job to wade through the swamps and see if I could catch them. One day I was working an area that didn’t have…