Tessa Shanteler – Student on the Job
Tessa Shanteler is a fourth-year student with a double major in Wildlife Ecology and Ecology and Environmental Sciences. Last summer, she worked as the Northwoods Stewardship Center’s Invasive Plant Technician at Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge in the Northern Maine National Wildlife Refuge Complex (NWRC). Tessa spent a lot of her summer in the field, grid-mapping invasive plant species through an ArcGIS Online app called Collector, to create system-wide maps of invasive plant species at Moosehorn and Aroostook National Wildlife Refuges. During this season, she also had the chance to do some invasive plant control on glossy buckthorn (Frangula alnus) and purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria). Throughout the summer, Tessa also worked with the biology crew on some of their projects; including pest monitoring, bat acoustic monitoring, beaver debris clearing, bumblebee atlasing, passerine, goose and duck banding, and dip netting vernal pools. These opportunities furthered Tessa’s knowledge of plants and wildlife, and provided her with valuable field experience working with an amazing crew and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.