Colorado Bat Watch Summer 2024 Intern

Rocky Mountain Wild provides internships through their Gender Advancement and Parity in STEM (GAPS) Program, which are open to people from historically marginalized genders. (More information can be found on the GAPS webpage). 

This year’s internship is focused on the Colorado Bat Watch program! Here’s the direct link to the listing: https://rockymountainwild.org/internships-and-mentorships

Time Commitment: 32 hr/week for 13.5 weeks (negotiable)
Compensation: $20/hour with paid time off benefits (vacation, health and wellness)
Classification: Short-term, full-time, hourly employee
Work location: Remote with travel around the Front Range, Routt and Pike-San Isabel National Forests 

About Colorado Bat Watch:
Colorado Bat Watch (CBW) is a community science initiative, developed by Rocky Mountain Wild, in collaboration with the U.S. Forest Service, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, the Colorado Natural Heritage Program and the North American Bat Monitoring Program, to meet multi-agency statewide bat research and monitoring needs. North American bats face unprecedented threats including white-nose syndrome, habitat loss and fragmentation, wind energy development, pesticides, and climate change. Colorado is home to 18 bat species, but little is known about the population status of most of these species. Thus, there is a pressing need to expand bat monitoring in Colorado, in light of the unprecedented threats faced by bats, and especially with the detection of the fungus that causes white-nose syndrome in Colorado in 2022. Colorado Bat Watch aims to address this need by using community scientists to collect baseline data on the locations and characteristics of bat roost sites, and monitor bat colonies to improve understanding of the status of local populations. The goals of Colorado Bat Watch are to 1) provide reliable data to multiple agency partners and resource managers to better meet their bat monitoring needs and help inform bat conservation efforts on our public lands and open spaces; and 2) build public support for bat conservation through community outreach and education. 

Rocky Mountain Wild is looking for a full-time, temporary intern to help implement Colorado Bat Watch. This position will work with direction from Rocky Mountain Wild’s conservation biologist and conservation ecologist.

Major Duties and Responsibilities:

• Communication and Outreach – Create tabling materials, table at community events, recruit volunteers and develop new partnerships, especially with underrepresented communities.
• Events – Plan and advertise bat walks, plan and advertise bat colony counts (at least 2), co-lead bat walks with bat experts, and co-lead bat colony counts with experts.
• Field Work – Scout bat colonies to determine suitability for colony counts and write bat colony site descriptions.
• Equipment Management – Create, distribute and maintain equipment kits for volunteers.
• Research and Writing – Help develop a white paper on feasibility of doing acoustic monitoring through community science.
• Volunteer Training and Management – Assist in developing a system for volunteer management, communicate with and manage volunteers, advertise events to volunteers, develop training materials for volunteers, create a volunteer survey to get feedback from volunteers on colony count methods, and work with a translator to translate materials into Spanish.

Qualifications:
This internship is intended to provide entry-level experience. We encourage all interested applicants to apply, regardless of prior experience. 

• Love of bats
• Interest in learning about Colorado’s 18 bat species
• Experience or interest engaging the public at community events
• Willingness to help lead bat walks and colony counts with bat experts
• Interest in cultivating new partnerships on behalf of Colorado Bat Watch
• Willingness to conduct informational interviews with bat experts
• Experience or interest in volunteer management
• Good writing, research, and organizational skills
• Ability to work autonomously with regular check-ins with Rocky Mountain Wild staff
• Willingness to travel along the Front Range and to the Routt and Pike San Isabel National Forests, potentially including overnight trips
• Willingness to hike up to 2 miles to potential roost sites to look for bats at sunrise or sunset
• Valid driver’s license

Other Information:
This position is a full-time, temporary position. It will run from the date of hire for at least thirteen and a half weeks, depending on hours per week worked. Travel is required and access to a reliable vehicle is ideal (mileage will be covered at the IRS standard mileage rate).  The intern will be paid $20/hour with a week and a half of paid vacation time and up to 15 hours of paid health and wellness leave.