Katie: US Fish and Wildlife Service Volunteer

It was a lot of fun having high school senior Katie on island for a week!  She helped with her mom's Hawaiian Monk Seal beach surveys.  In addition, Katie worked as a volunteer in various wildlife management projects for Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge.  She helped:

• observe and record the growth stage of young Laysan Albatross and Red-tailed Tropicbirds, 
• sort and measure marine debris, 
• pull up the alien invasive plant Verbesina, and
• gather and wrap albatross boluses (albatross barf!) for classroom dissections.  (Yes; that's a real bolus she's wrapping in the right-hand picture.)

But perhaps her favorite work was checking on the health of Laysan Ducks (LADU.)

photo by Kittipong Janthasang

For the weekly all-atoll wetlands survey, Katie got very good at using binoculars to see the ducks.  With the binocs, she could often read the code on colored bands that some individual ducks wear on their legs.  [Challenge yourself to read LADU bands in FOAM's "Activity: Laysan Ducks #1 -- Bands" and Activity: Laysan Ducks #2 -- Who's Who!"]  Then Katie entered the data into an Xcel spreadsheet in the Refuge's computer.  Every morning she also helped check each of the wetlands for any ducks affected by the disease, avian botulism.

Each of us needs to help take care of the living things around us.  Katie certainly is a good steward!  How can you volunteer for plants and animals in your community?