Summer Student

**Department**:Natural Resources & Renewables

**Location**:KENTVILLE

**Type of Employment**:Student

**Union Status**:Exclusion - Non Union - NSPG

**Closing Date**:05-Apr-24 (Applications are accepted until 11:59 PM Atlantic Time)

**About Us**:
Nova Scotia is rich in natural resources - including biodiversity, forests, provincial parks and the land we manage. The Department of Lands and Forestry is responsible for the development, management, conservation and protection of forest, parks and wildlife resources and the administration of the province's Crown land. Together we are working with Nova Scotians to build a better future through sustainable natural resource management as we all benefit from the natural health and wealth of the province.

As part of the Renewable Resources branch, you will be contributing to programs that develop and conduct research related to biodiversity and ecosystem management practices, develop strategies for sustainable management of Nova Scotia’s renewable natural resources, and interact with diverse organizations in the conservation, recreation and industrial sectors. The Wildlife division does this by monitoring populations of harvested and species-at-risk, maintaining digital and spatial (GIS) databases of occurrence and distribution of species and ecosystems, and developing species and ecosystem management tools for Integrated Resource Management through ongoing research.

**About Our Opportunity**:
The successful applicant will work alongside DNRR biologists to pilot a wildlife monitoring program in the boreal forest of Cape Breton. Duties will include:

- Organizing field equipment, programming monitoring devices and preparing data collection forms.
- Deploying camera traps and autonomous recording devices (ARUs) to collect data on terrestrial mammals and songbirds for the wildlife monitoring program. Field work will take place in the Cape Breton Highlands in late May and early June.
- Coordinating a team of citizen scientists who will be supporting the wildlife monitoring program.
- Assisting with a field experiment to quantify ARU detection distances for various songbird species. Field work will take place near Kentville in June and July.
- Contributing to data entry and management.
- Summarizing information on the survey effort and citizen scientist participation in the wildlife monitoring program.

Depending on the interests of the successful applicant, there is also space to conduct a personal project. Some potential projects include (a) evaluating the success of the citizen scientist program and making recommendations on how this program could be expanded effectively in the future, or (b) investigating how habitat and call characteristics (e.g., frequency, pitch) impact birdsong detectability using ARUs.

**Qualifications and Experience**:
**Additional Information**:
A Valid N.S. Class 5 Driver’s License or equivalent is required. Your must be willing to work in remote environments.

**Salary Range**:_ _$19.70 - $29.11 Hourly

**Employment Equity Statement**:
Current government employees may access this posting through the link below: