{"id":65395,"date":"2007-05-08T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2007-05-08T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/hope-valley-residents-education-was-for-the-birds\/"},"modified":"2007-05-08T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2007-05-08T00:00:00","slug":"hope-valley-residents-education-was-for-the-birds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2007\/05\/hope-valley-residents-education-was-for-the-birds\/","title":{"rendered":"Hope Valley resident\u2019s education was \u2018for the birds\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\tHe\u2019s set to graduate from URI May 20 with wildlife conservation degree<\/p>\n


\n\tKINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 May 8, 2007 \u2013 University of Rhode Island senior Malcolm Grant\u2019s best days are those spent outdoors \u2013 kayaking, camping, backpacking and observing wildlife.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cMy dad influenced me to pursue a career in natural resources, and my mom got me interested in birds during my freshman year,\u201d said the wildlife and conservation biology major from Hope Valley who will graduate from URI on May 20.<\/p>\n


\n\tHis outdoor skills and passion for wildlife led Grant to a series of exciting summer jobs that provided him with close-up encounters with a wide range of wildlife, especially birds. He spent two summers working for the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management\u2019s Division of Fish and Wildlife monitoring the osprey population in Rhode Island and trapping small mammals to assess their population distribution. Another summer at DEM found him surveying freshwater fish populations in the state.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cLast summer I worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Massachusetts conducting various research, which included traveling around to offshore islands to survey birds,\u201d Grant said. \u201cNomans Land Island National Wildlife Refuge is a small island with hardly any trees on it but a lot of nesting seabirds. We did bird surveys, counted eggs and chicks, and we even did a perimeter walk around the island, which used to be a Navy bombing range, to record the location of unexploded ordinance.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tThe experience he gained in his summer jobs translated into academic and extracurricular success. As a member of the URI chapter of the Wildlife Society, he captained a team of students in a wildlife biology quiz bowl competition against universities from throughout the Northeast, and he led the team to the championship.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cThere were four people on each team, and I wasn\u2019t sure that I was even going to participate,\u201d he said, \u201cbut someone suggested that I enter because I guess I know a lot of random facts about wildlife and conservation.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tWith graduation approaching, Grant is trying to figure out plans for his future. <\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cI know I want to go to graduate school some day, but I don\u2019t know where and I don\u2019t know when. But it\u2019s a goal,\u201d said the URI student who received a scholarship from the Weekapaug Foundation for Conservation, among others.<\/p>\n


\n\tThis summer he has lined up what may be his most exciting wildlife experience yet: a job with the National Audubon Society restoring seabird populations to eight islands off the coast of Maine.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cThey\u2019ve re-established puffin colonies on some of the islands, and now they\u2019re monitoring and measuring the productivity of the colonies, trying to bring back other birds like murres and razorbills,\u201d Grant explained. \u201cI\u2019ll be a research assistant, helping out with all of these projects, and camping out on the islands for two or three weeks at a time. I\u2019ll even get to stay in a historic lighthouse on one of the islands.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cAfter that, I\u2019ll start getting serious about grad school,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n


\nURI News Bureau Photo by Michael Salerno Photography.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

He\u2019s set to graduate from URI May 20 with wildlife conservation degree KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 May 8, 2007 \u2013 University of Rhode Island senior Malcolm Grant\u2019s best days are those spent outdoors \u2013 kayaking, camping, backpacking and observing wildlife. \u201cMy dad influenced me to pursue a career in natural resources, and my mom […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65397,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}