When I arrived in mid-June, I wasn’t sure what to expect. The rest of the fish crew had already been here for three weeks or more, so I was the last to arrive. It was not an issue; my roommates and the rest of the crew were so welcoming, and I was excited to join them this summer! 

I stayed in a large farmhouse at the park and practically lived on our porch swing to beat the heat. I made friends with the skunk, deer, mice, groundhogs, frogs and toads, squirrels, and foxes that lived around us. 

In my spare time, I went for hikes and swam in lakes and rivers within the park. I also learned more about the history of the town of Luray and Page County, Virginia. I visited Washington, D.C, to see the sights while I was on the East Coast. 

I remember my first few days were a barrage of paperwork. I completed onboarding and learned about safety, NPS rules, the park, and its history. I discussed with my mentor the important role the division of natural and cultural resources plays – specifically in natural resource conservation. 

One particular issue the park and the division of natural and cultural resources are facing is climate change, specifically, how it affects native brook trout populations. As the climate warms, so do stream temperatures, decreasing the amount of suitable brook trout habitat within the park. The park wanted to develop a community-science program to track trends in brook trout habitat loss, vulnerability to climate change, and brook trout presence within the park. I was hired on for this purpose. 

I discussed with my mentor the goals for my project. My focus was to write and test a protocol for an underwater brook trout monitoring program, then decide if an underwater video or eDNA-based approach would work best for a community science program. 

This summer, I spent most of my time in the field with my GoPro cameras, testing different methodologies and figuring out what worked best. I simultaneously wrote down this protocol as I made improvements for the park to use should they choose the underwater video method. I was able to test my protocol on two different groups of seasonal employees and ACE interns. They gave me valuable feedback on the clarity of my directions and writing. 

Once I had collected enough video data, I analyzed it. I found that the method was effective at detecting brook trout but that the methodology had room for improvement. It showed that the recording period length I had chosen may have been too short, and I may not have sampled enough times per stream. Moving forward, I decided to only increase the number of samples taken per stream because I could not choose to change both due to camera battery constraints. 

Even after the change was made to the methodology, we realized it might not be the best approach for a community science program. The protocol was complicated. Volunteers would have to know what areas to sample, how to use the cameras, how to troubleshoot camera difficulties in the field, how to upload videos, and how to properly identify brook trout in the recorded videos. For those reasons, we decided it might be best to go with the other option, eDNA. I did a cost analysis of what the eDNA method would look like for the park, and I met virtually with some representatives of local schools and Trout Unlimited chapters to gauge interest in the eDNA program. It was met with positive reception. The park’s current plan, moving forward, is that the community science program will be eDNA-based and begin next spring and summer. While it is unfortunate that I will not be here to see the program in action, I am very proud of my work and my decisions to make the program the best it can be for the park and our volunteers. 

During the 10th week of my stay at Shenandoah National Park, I joined the rest of the SIP Fellows in Montreal for the Annual ESA meeting. I gave a short presentation about my work this summer and the park’s progress regarding the community science brook trout monitoring program. I had never presented at a professional conference before, but it was a positive experience for me. I enjoyed meeting the other SIP fellows and hearing about their amazing projects in parks across the country. I had the chance to network and connect with some professionals in areas of interest to me, specifically eDNA. I was able to bring back valuable information and advice to strengthen the program at the park. Hopefully, these are connections I can continue to foster in the future. 

In addition to my own project, I was able to help the rest of the fish crew with theirs. This summer, they had two main focuses: electrofishing stream surveys (to see what fish species are present in the park) and invasive brown trout removal. I had the opportunity to help with both endeavors many times. I learned so much, from electrofishing to identifying native Virginia fish, trees, and insects. 

Being a SIP fellow was an amazing experience. I am very grateful for my time at Shenandoah, the people I met, the things I learned, the skills I developed, and the experiences I had. I am also very proud of my work and what it means for the conservation of native brook trout and getting communities involved in science and with their national parks!

Thank you to everyone who makes the Scientists in Parks program a reality: Jessica Johnston, Jessie Ribera, and Teresa Mourad from ESA, Kiersten Jarvis and Chelsea Bitting from NPS, my NPS mentor Evan Childress and all the other NPS mentors across the country. This would not have been possible without you! 

Getting to know your mentor and their experiences is an important aspect of that connection because it can help you know what to expect as you start your journey pursuing your own career. To do that, I decided to interview my mentor, Evan Childress, to gain some insight.

Evan Childress is the Supervisory Fish Biologist at Shenandoah National Park in Virginia and has been for almost three years. Within his position, he is responsible for a wide variety of duties, including managing several ongoing projects and the people that protect the park’s natural resources, coordinating with outside researchers to implement projects within the park, analyzing long-term monitoring data, and documenting trends in natural resources (like declining brook trout populations), communicating with other branches of the park, and more.

1. Did you always want to work for NPS?

“No, but I’ve always wanted to do science to inform conservation and I’ve been able to do that for a few different agencies: USGS, USFW, and now NPS. I like them all, and each of them has a major role to play.”

2. What steps did you take that put you on the right path for a job that aligned with your interests? Degree? Internships? DHA? Etc. 

“I have degrees in biology – undergrad, a master’s in environmental science, and a PhD in freshwater and marine science – all of which are relevant to conservation and in aquatic environments in particular, which is my primary interest. I did a postdoc with USGS and that was kind of my entrance into the federal world. I was a contractor there at first, but I was able to convince them to hire me as a term employee. That made a difference. It allowed me to then get a permanent, internal job with the fish and wildlife service.”

“I think throughout my education, I did focus on working with agency people and nature conservancies and others that made it clear that I was interested in doing this and that I demonstrated some ability there. Ultimately, developing the skills that were in demand at the time was the thing that got me those job – especially the quantitative skills.”

3. What has your experience been like working up the GS ranks? What was your first position with the NPS?

“I started as a GS 11, as a postdoc. With no experience and a PhD, you can start at a GS 11. Then I got an 11-12 ladder position as my first job with fish and wildlife and then I was promoted there to a GS 13, as a manager. Then I took this job, which is GS 12. I actually downgraded to come here, because of largely the location but also the content of the job.”

“I think it’s extremely variable. What people often say is you have to move around to move up. It’s not always true – sometimes there are opportunities that come up but, if you think about the available jobs at Shenandoah National Park, there’s one biologist in a few different areas, it’s not like you move up into those, and then there’s the division chief. The biologists are typically GS 11s and the division chief is a GS 13. You cannot directly move there. That does mean that you have to move around to move up. There are often not the steps in a ladder in place that you are, in one place.”

4. How long did it take/what did you need to do to acquire a permanent position with NPS?

“I have one path. I’m not sure how representative it is. For my permanent position, having a PhD was appealing to that particular supervisor, for that particular position. Population ecology, quantitative skills, a PhD, an interest in conservation, and some experience with the endangered species act were all things that got me that job. I think that with less education, and coming up the ranks, starting as a seasonal and coming up that way, I think it can be more of a slog – I came in the side, more of the education route, hopping over from academia to the federal government. That worked well for me, so I don’t want to dissuade people from doing that.”

5. What is your favorite part of your job?

“The times when I can really integrate the management decisions with the science – like collecting data, and that directly feeds back into a decision that we make and we really close that loop, those are best. At USGS my projects weren’t really like that. Other people at the USGS do that in a serious way. That’s well regarded and supported at USGS, that just wasn’t what I was doing. I did it in a very complete way at the USDFW, particularly with a captive rearing program for a couple of species of endangered fish. We collected monitoring data to see how well the fish were surviving and then adjusted the operations of the facility to try and improve that. And here, we are trying to implement something like that with the endangered Shenandoah salamander, a formal adaptive management program. We aren’t there yet with the fish. Managing the fish at the park looks like allowing fishing and removing brown trout. It’s not a lot of management, we don’t have that integration here yet.”

“The place I would like to go here is looking forward – getting prepared for climate change and understanding what the suite of options is for our streams and for our fish populations. Figuring out what we can do now to get ahead of that and what we should not worry about. My sense is that the NPS is going to move into a more active management phase here as climate change comes to disrupt these systems, being prepared for that and laying the groundwork for that so that we can make moves when the time comes is what I’m working towards.”

Brook trout, while common throughout the park, are facing a variety of threats, from resource competition due to non-native species, like Salmo trutta, or brown trout, acid deposition, and climate change. Brook trout require cold water, and rising stream temperatures due to climate change are decreasing the amount of suitable habitat. Several decades worth of brook trout monitoring data park shows that brook trout abundance is decreasing across much of the park and their distribution may be shrinking.

My project focuses on this issue. This summer, I am working to create a citizen science brook trout monitoring program. Underwater cameras will be used to conduct presence/absence surveys to determine which populations are most likely to be impacted by climate change. Knowing which streams are affected can help prioritize locations for interventions and develop more effective restoration and protection measures

During these last few weeks, I have been developing the protocol for the underwater video program and getting out into the field to test it myself! The data I collect testing the protocol will be used to determine the efficacy of the surveying method across a wide range of habitats and underwater visibility conditions by comparing it to previously collected data on trout presence throughout the park. Eventually, citizen scientists will be able to conduct video surveying independently while venturing through Shenandoah National Park and return collected data to NPS.

Along with my project, I have been learning about the park, its wildlife and history, and working with the rest of the Shenandoah fish crew conducting (pun intended) electrofishing monitoring throughout the park. Electrofishing is the process of using electricity, flowing between two probes (anode and cathode), to affect fish movement, causing fish to swim towards the probes or become stunned, ultimately making them easy to catch, identify and measure (Don’t worry! The fish are not harmed and are returned to their habitats!). This process gives the park an idea of what fish are present where, and in what numbers. It has been a lot of work, and a lot of fun!

Stay tuned for updates on the project!

Rowan