Since 1999, NorthWoods Stewardship Center has had a long-standing partnership with the US Fish and Wildlife Service to manage Youth Conservation Corps (YCC) crews at National Wildlife Refuges across New England. Nearly 20 years later, the partnership continues to offer great conservation career opportunities at several new locations. This year, NorthWoods will manage a YCC Crew at the Missisquoi National Wildlife Refuge in northwestern Vermont and a YCC Crew Leader team at the Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge in Downeast Maine. These crews are in addition to our current YCC crews at the Silvio O. Conte National Fish and Wildlife Refuge Nulhegan Basin Division (Brunswick, Vt), Pondicherry Division (Whitefield, NH), Fort River Division (Hadley, Ma), and Springfield Community Crew (Springfield, Ma) as well as the Stewart B. MCKinney National Wildlife Refuge (Westbrook, Ct) and the Umbagog National Wildlife Refuge (Errol, NH). This partnership allows us to further our conservation work across New England and provide training and employment to 36 high school-aged youth and 17 leaders in five states.
In addition, NorthWoods has been working with the USFWS to offer a number of internship positions designed to give participants real world, hands on conservation experience. Positions include 2 Shorebird, 2 Island Keeper and 2 Roseate and Common Tern Interns at the Stewart B. McKinney National Wildlife Refuge in Westbrook, Connecticut. These individuals will help monitor shorebird and tern breeding activity, protect breeding pairs and their habitat from human disturbance, and educate island visitors. At the Rhode Island National Wildlife Refuge Complex based in Charlestown, RI positions will include 3 Shorebird Conservation Interns, 2 General Biological Internships and 2 Salt march internships. Participants in these positions will include monitoring and protecting shorebirds, controlling and mapping non-native invasive plants and assisting with a variety of salt marsh research projects. And at the Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge in Calais Maine there will be 1 Forestry Intern position which will involve working on a forestry inventory and monitoring program.
While NorthWoods remains committed to serving the communities of northern Vermont and New Hampshire, this partnership with the USFWS allows our organization to expand the reach and impact of its programing. Our effort to connect local kids with meaningful work in their communities has translated well into many of the communities we now are now a part of outside of the Northeast Kingdom. Participants in our YCC crews earn the same valuable, hands-on, conservation-based employment skills while learning about the natural and cultural environment where they live, not to mention a well-deserved pay check!
For information or to apply for a USFWS YCC Crew or Intern position, visit our Corps Employment webpage, or email ross@northwoodscenter.org.