Weeks 3-5 at DNREC Fish and Wildlife Division

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’ve officially finished the first half of my internship with DNREC! The past few weeks have been packed with traveling across Delaware, collecting ticks, and identifying tick species. We even had an "arts and crafts" day where we made a tick bagel (an everything bagel with a few hidden ticks) and created resin ticks for outreach events to help show people just how tiny ticks really are.

                                                      

A photo of my team and me working on the resin ticks!        An example of our resin ticks! 

I also spent time working with the mosquito crew, taking the Argo out into the marsh for mosquito surveillance and helping set up light traps. Over the course of one day, we visited fourteen different sites to place mosquito traps for surveillance.

Outreach has also been a big part of my internship these past two weeks. We taught children ages 5–7 and 8–12 about ticks, tick safety, and how to protect themselves outdoors. This past Wednesday, we worked with a group of high school students to teach them about both ticks and mosquitoes and the public health risks they pose.

To wrap up my fifth week, I helped collect ticks from foxes and even skinned the foxes to look for ticks that had burrowed beneath their skin! I can't wait to see what the second half of the summer has in store. 

                           

A photo from one of our tick-dragging sites!        A vial filled with ticks I collected on our tick-dragging sites!  

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