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Postcards from the Field: Alan Dodd

Shell Conservation Intern Alan Dodd

Greetings from Edmonton:

Every week there are places to go and species to see. One of the rarest species I have seen this summer was a Trumpeter Swan when I was conducting field work at NCC's Beavertail Creek property near Grande Prairie. Trumpeter Swans are the largest and rarest swans in the world. Grande Prairie is among one of the few Trumpeter Swan breeding areas in Alberta. Trumpeter Swans usually mate for life but human disturbance and development over the years has interfered with their way of life. While in Grande Prairie I also worked closely with a herd of 25 Bison. Actually, the Bison followed me around from a distance while I was recording flora and fauna inventory on a landowner's property.

I am working as a Shell Conservation Intern in Alberta along with my fellow Shell Conservation Intern Morgan Hill. This is not my first summer working for NCC; for the past two summers I've worked with the Land Securement team compiling background information on natural areas, writing literature reviews and creating Geographic Information Systems (GIS) maps. This summer, I'm doing field work at conservation sites throughout Alberta. At the beginning of July, I was working on three properties in Grande Prairie recording vegetation inventories, taking photo reference points and taking Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinates. GPS coordinates are retrieved using a GPS receiver, a small hand-held device which connects to satellites and their ground stations. By using a GPS receiver, you get precise data on the latitude, longitude and altitude of a particular location on a property. When I return to the Edmonton office, I import the GPS coordinates in a computer program which marks them on aerial map. These maps are included in monitoring reports and are great resources for NCC and local landowners.

This week, I will be conducting field work and putting up signs around NCC properties Pigeon Lake, about 40 minutes southwest of Edmonton. These signs are specifically targeted to discourage local ATV and snowmobile use, which is threatening sensitive species in the area.

I'm a recent Environmental and Conservation Sciences graduate from the University of Alberta with a major in Conservation Biology. At the end of the summer I hope to spend some time up at my cabin before I find work in conservation or environmental consulting.

Bye for now,

Alan Dodd