Yuliia Skrypniuk - Week 10 with DNREC Fish and Wildlife Division

    I can’t believe it’s already the final week of my internship! This week was full of fieldwork, learning, and some exciting last activities with both the tick and mosquito teams.

    At the start of the week, I joined the tick team to visit three parks in northern Delaware for flag dragging. While tick numbers were low, we still managed to collect some Ixodes scapularis larvae (commonly known as deer ticks), which are important to track because they can carry Lyme disease.

    On Tuesday, I joined the mosquito team for a boat trip out to the salt marshes. We checked water levels, monitored for mosquito larvae, and looked for adult mosquitoes to make sure everything was within acceptable levels. After lunch, we visited two more parks to collect ticks and monitor tick activity there as well.

    Wednesday was all about mosquito trap collection. I spent the day with one of the seasonal workers, driving to different trap locations across northern Delaware to collect the light traps that had been set the night before. Some traps were so full that we couldn’t even see the bottom of the cups—lots of mosquitoes!

    Thursday started with tick identification in the lab, followed by something very cool—tick resin casting! We preserved ticks in clear resin, labeling each life stage so the samples can be used for educational purposes in clinics, schools, or public outreach. It’s such a creative and useful way to spread awareness about ticks and tick-borne diseases. Fingers crossed they all set well!

    Friday was my last day. First thing in the morning, I checked on the tick resin projects, and they turned out amazing! The colors and features of each tick were perfectly preserved, and all our efforts paid off. Later, we responded to some local mosquito complaints, checking residents’ yards and nearby woodland pools for breeding sites.

    At lunch, my amazing coworkers surprised me with a cake, a handmade tick cup coaster, and a card full of kind notes and best wishes for the future—it was such a heartfelt moment. In the afternoon, we ended the day by pinning some of the insects we had collected earlier in the week, and through my internship (red velvet wasp was one of them). It was my first time learning how to properly pin specimens, and it takes a lot of patience and steady hands, especially with tiny bugs!

    One interesting topic that came up during the internship was about deer and ticks—turns out, one way to disrupt the tick life cycle is by lowering deer populations. But in some places in Delaware, there are up to 114 deer per square mile, while controlling ticks would require reducing that to just 8 per square mile—which clearly isn’t realistic. This just shows how complex tick control is, and why surveillance and prevention remain the best tools we have.

    On the last note, this internship has been such a wonderful experience. I’ve learned so much about wildlife, disease surveillance, and fieldwork. Sure, sometimes it was hot, humid, or windy—but every single day was worth it. I’m so grateful to have been part of such a passionate and caring team of environmental scientists and workers.

    Huge thanks to Ashley Kennedy, PhD, BCE (Tick Biologist), and Wil Winter, Environmental Scientist III, for your guidance, support, and the opportunity to be part of this amazing program. Thank you for everything! I’ll always remember this experience fondly.