Volunteer internship for work with feral cats on a New Zealand offshore island.

[sue_bertram]

I am looking for an intern to start in August/September 2015 to commit to 6 months on a feral cat project. The project is looking at feral cat ecology and movement, and their impact on kiwi and other native wildlife. The internship is a great chance to gain experience in different monitoring techniques with different animals.
 
Duties include:
·         Using telemetry to locate feral cats.
·         Setting up camera traps, collecting the footage and sorting it. The footage is analysed for feral cat and kiwi videos.
·         Live rat trapping.
·         Distance sampling to estimate bird density.
·         Collecting invertebrate pitfalls.
·         Analysing cat scat in the lab.

 
Time will be split between the lab/office and the field; 2 weeks in each place per month. There will be the opportunity to participate in kiwi work as well. Duties include a mixture of day and night work.
 
The position is unpaid, but travel costs to the field, and food and accommodation in the field will be paid for. The rest of the expenses will need to be covered by the intern.
 
The candidate must be fit as we work on hilly terrain, and able to walk at least 10km per day. An enthusiastic attitude and good work ethic is essential. We work on an island with a small team so a tolerance to isolation is desired. Experience in telemetry is also desired but not essential as there will be training.
 
If you are interested, please send a CV and a cover letter to k.st...@massey.ac.nz. Questions should be sent to this email address also.
 
Applications will be reviewed now and continue until the position is filled.
 
Thank you,
Kathryn Strang
 
PhD Candidate
Massey University
Ecology Group
Institute of Agriculture and Environment
Palmerston North, New Ze