By: Aidan Dahmus, DHS Senior Student
In the past three months, I have been working at the North Dakota Game and Fish Department. The North Dakota Game and Fish Department is a government job that is responsible for keeping North Dakota safe and restored. NDGF in Dickinson has been responsible for many projects like restoring animal populations in certain parts of the state and building habitat for species. I shadow Jesse Kolar, the upland game biologist.
When I get there, I usually set up our table in the back of the office. At that time, Jesse goes and gets the wing surveys from the freezer. The wing surveys are made up of wings, head and tail feathers, and feet from upland game birds from across the state. Hunters send in these surveys after they have harvested an animal. Jesse and I take these parts and figure out the sex and age of the birds. We then take that data and figure out population sizes in certain counties and the harvest rate.
Recently we have been working on doing in field research. This involves going out into the badlands and taking count on upland birds. Spring is the mating season for these birds, so we count them while they are doing their mating dances and rituals. We do everything from hiking into National Grassland and counting sharptail grouse at their dancing ground(lek), to counting how many times rooster pheasants crow call.
Everyone who works at NDGF has been very helpful and very nice. They have helped me with my career path for the future. Jesse has worked one on one with me in figuring out which schools are the best program for what I am going into. He has also talked to me about future job listings I can take after college and during the summer.
I think that the Work-Based-Learning (WBL) program is a great experience for future students. I believe it is very useful because you get to go out into the field and get an idea of what the job looks like in the real world. I think I have learned much more information from this job than I would have from the classroom. NDGF has been an amazing experience and I would highly recommend students to take the class.