The Conservation College Wildlife Conservation & Tracking Instructors training internship position is an exclusive summer focus of our Earth Skills Apprenticeship with only two positions available in this, our 20th Anniversary Year. Check out all the general program details for 2017 on our main Earth Skills Teaching Apprenticeship page.
Our two Wildlife Conservation & Tracking Instructor training positions are available for adults who want to move beyond a general overview of the skills we teach, and delve deeper into practical skills of wildlife conservation, animal tracking and zoology. Participants will realize that in every area of outdoor study – herbalism, scouting, survival, traditional living, etc. – “it all comes back to tracking.”
For instance, if you can find a perfect rock to use as a bowl, you don’t have to spend a week making one that holds water. Think of anything: if you can find it, you save the time to make it. In order to track, you have to “know your place,” learn the hazards, develop heightened senses, and be able to remember (record) findings accurately. And whether you join our team for the purpose of research, teaching, or sport, you will be well on your way to becoming a highly valuable wildlife guide.
In one summer, you can become a professional tracker and wildlife conservation instructor through this full time, residential apprenticeship at Wolf Camp and the Conservation College with travels into the North Cascades Mountains, Central Washington Canyonlands and Pacific Coast Wilderness. Each week of the summer is an intensive study on a different aspect of the animal kingdom, including skills to understand “sign” while tracking animals, skills of “trailing” to catch up to the animals, opportunities to get evaluated by Cybertracker, Int’l, and help finding work in the field of wildlife conservation.
FAQ – What is the Earth Skills Apprenticeship Mission and Who is the Ideal Intern?
The mission of the internship is to guide you to become an accomplished experiential wildlife tracking guide and a teacher of most vertebrates and some invertebrates, so it is more than an internship, it is an apprenticeship designed for:
1) aspiring wildlife trackers to teach youth these subjects while becoming versed in them simultaneously; or
2) experienced naturalist, zoologists and trackers learn to teach their crafts to students of all ages; or
3) experienced teachers of other subject matters become versed in wildlife tracking in a familiar fast-paced educational setting;
Check out all the general program details for 2017 on our main Earth Skills Teaching Apprenticeship page, and click here for supplemental FAQs received from applicants.
FAQ – Which Outdoor Skills will I specialize in as a Wildlife Conservation & Tracking Instructor intern/apprentice?
Specialty Skills
• Wildlife Tracking & Animal Surveying (identification, trailing, aging, interpretation)
• Birding & Bird Language (academic and song-to-alarm interpretations)
• Naturalist Sketching & Journaling (using sit spots, drawing instruction, quick journaling strategies)
• Skills of the Ancient Scout (sensory awareness, stealthy movement, camouflage, games)
• Wild Edible Foraging & Preparation (Herbs, Nuts, Roots, Flowers, Fruits, Insects)
• Primitive Cooking & Food Storage (pit cook, clay oven, ash cakes, smoking, jerkying, pemmican)
• Medicinal Herb Collection & Preservation (drawing from knowledge of area herbalists)
• Preventative Health & Herbal Spas (from daily health routines, to our special spa treatments)
• Emergency Shelter & Primitive Shelter (debris hut, lean-to, wickiup, thatch hut, earth lodge, split cedar cabins, including fire drafting strategies)
• Wet Fire Maintenance & Fire by Friction (bow drill, hand drill, fire plow, flint & steel)
• Flintknapping & Primitive Tool Making (from harvested stones, bones, wood)
• Bow & Arrow Making (survival bows, self bows, lumber bows, fletching, lashing, etc.)
• Primitive Fishing (wiering, netting, spearing, bow fishing, hand fishing, hook and line, gorges, bullfrogging)
• Natural Water Purification (seeps, filters, rock boiling, and locating natural springs)
• Bowls & Cordage Making (double and triple reverse wrap using nettle, fireweed, cedar, kelp seaweed)
• Primitive Hunting (bow and arrow, rabbit stick, at-latl, ethics, strategies, butchering)
• Hide Tanning (wet and dry scraping, brain and other high-tannin methods, hair on and off)
Note: Vertebrates are animals that generally include fish, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds. Invertebrates are animals without a backbone, and trackers limit their pursuit to those which can be readily seen and followed, including Annelids (earthworms, leeches), Arthropods (insects, arachnids, and crustaceans), and intertidal life (shellfish, jellyfish, starfish, anemonies, urchins, squids).
Experiential Skills
• Farm Animal Care & Cultivation
• Human Tracking
• Backpacking & Camping
• Land Mapping & Water Navigation (orienteering with and without modern aids)
• Trapping
• Bioregional Ecosystems (old growth temperate rainforest, glaciated alpine meadow, intertidal and estuary, river and lake, wetland and bog, desert and sagebrush steppe, mixed pine and subalpine forest)
• Storytelling, Music and the Arts (flute making, drumming, songwriting, poetry, clay sculpting, natural paints, singing and pianos/guitars on hand)
• Risk Management (assessing sites, planning activities, mitigating hazards)
• Emergency Rescue, Advanced First Aid, CPR (wilderness and water settings)
Ready to Apply?
Check out all the general program details for 2017 on our main Earth Skills Teaching Apprenticeship page, and click here for supplemental FAQs received from applicants, and after deciding whether this apprenticeship focus most interests you, click here to check out our application process. We always keep your information absolutely private, and will never share it. Not quite ready yet? Email us to be put on our our list for future years.
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