What was it like to be a Research and Community Science intern at the Urban Ecology Center?

Where do I even start? I met a lot of passionate people and did several interesting animal surveys. If you stopped by any of the Urban Ecology Center (UEC) branches during the summer, you probably found three young adults with clipboards in hand and backpacks strapped tight walking through the parks. Depending on what time of the summer you came, we either looked slightly confused or highly confident (I am happy to say that the latter was at the end of the summer).

Snakes get a bad rap. For many of us, it is instinctual to feel a sense of imminent danger when these critters are near. As many of you may know, snakes are reptiles. Herpetology (the study of reptiles and amphibians) stems from the Greek word ‘herpton’ which literally refers to things that creep and crawl. The first time I held a snake was in high school. At the time, I was intimidated to touch a scaly Red-tailed Boa in front of me—as were many of my fellow classmates (crouching on chairs with hesitant and fearful glances). Despite all that, I slowly reached out my hand and was met with smooth overlapping scales and a small flickering forked tongue. From then on I was in awe of these critters and became passionate about snake conservation efforts.