Real Science Being Practiced in Yuma
April 6, 2017Student Monitors Vampire Bats Through USDA-APHIS Internship
Dr. Cecilia Vigil, Professor of Biology, recently attended a workshop involving Vampire Bats in Campeche, Mexico. Scientists from Mexico and the US participated in the workshop and much was learned that will be shared with students and colleagues. This opportunity came about through Arizona Western College’s USDA-ACIS grant funded by USDA-NIFA, where together an internship is collaboratively supported for one student a year to work in Yuma monitoring the presence of Vampire Bats in Yuma.
Student Jazmin Fuentes was selected for the internship and has been monitoring the presence of Vampire Bats in Yuma, which is a protocol of the USDA-APHIS. With climate change, the bats that are normally found in southern Mexico, central and south America, are predicted to move north. Vampire bats were found in the US thousands of years ago, as far north as Virginia.
For the internship, Jazmin monitors Yuma by visiting two cattle yards and two dairy farms a week to confirm that, at the moment, Vampire Bats are not present and to assess their distribution, if they ever become present in Yuma. During her monitoring sessions, she is required to inspect hundreds of cattle at each of her sites. She inspects the cattle for bleeding from their necks and clods. After collecting the data from the inspections, she fills out paperwork that is then sent to Phoenix and the information is then kept in a database.
Jazmin has received much support from the USDA-APHIS. She was provided vehicle training to drive a GOV vehicle to monitor the sites that she has to drive to. She was also given high-powered binoculars to help her look for potential wounds on cattle if vampire bats were to ever be present.
“Over the year with the USDA-ACIS grant, I have been very grateful with the opportunities that I have been given which has taken me to places to display this information about bats and their relevance to climate change. I was able to present in Farmington, NM for the Wildlife Society 50th annual meeting, CRTR in Laughlin, Nevada and Principle Investigator Conference by USDA-NIFA” said Jazmin.
Jazmin is also the USDA-ACIS intern and assists with outreach events for the AWC outdoor lab and helping promote the science programs that are offered in AWC. The goal is to coincide the use of the outdoor lab and students to obtain research experience and provide information about climate change and its effects towards pollinators ranging from bees to monarch butterflies.
“Overall, I love every aspect of this internship from educating individuals of climate change and its effects from wildlife to pollinators, introducing the outdoor lab to offer opportunities for students to become well-rounded scientist as they depart school, building the outdoor lab from the ground up with signs, geological samples, native plant species, and setting everything up with the help of our staff. I am proud to be part of an amazing team that supports each other, but also has a passion for science and students,” said Jazmin.
Jazmin attended AWC and then transferred to Northern Arizona University-Yuma, where she is currently studying Environmental Science with a Biology Emphasis. She will graduate with her Bachelors of Science in spring 2018. Her future plans include continuing her passion of working in conservation and pursing her Masters. She plans to continue to educate and make students, individuals, and general public aware of science that is outside their doors. She said that “plants, animals and even the air we breathe are all considered science and should be cherished.”
Professor Vigil mentioned that this internship “is real science being practiced in Yuma…science that is collaboratively networking through several government necessaries and AWC.....and supported through AWC. I believe, knowing that this will continue to support our partnership with federal agencies, and the agriculture community which would be impacted most (economically) by the presence of these types of bats. But more than anything, my attendance to this workshop reaches out to our science programs; for our students are practicing and listening to science that is applicable, that is taking place in their backyard, and which they are participating in and learning from.”
Contact:
Cecilia Vigil
Professor of Biology
Arizona Western College
(928) 344-7555
cecilia.vigil@azwestern.edu