Junior Technician; Strategic Natural Resource Consultants
For my first term with the UBC Co-op program, I spent a summer working as a junior forest technician for Strategic Natural Resource Consultants. During my time there I was given the opportunity to participate in many different roles within the field of forestry including boundary and road traverse, layout and stream assessments but the position I enjoyed taking on the most was Goshawk Surveys.
During my time at Strategic, I assessed and collected data for nests of endangered North American Goshawks. I surveyed second-growth forest territories for feathers, pellets and other bird sign. I also became familiar with basic visual and auditory Bird ID for species native to coastal BC and took notes on what birds I observed in a territory. Later in the summer season, I had the opportunity to count how many chicks were present within a territory and observe the fledgling hawks fly the nest.
I joined the co-op program to open doors for work experiences I would not have otherwise known about. Before entering this work term I had no wildlife biology experience, now through this co-op have gained data collection skills, species ID knowledge and a broader understanding of ecology within the field of forestry.