Opening: Wild Horse Internship, Carson National Forest – FILLED

Location: Carson National Forest, El Rito/Jicarilla Ranger Districts, El Rito/Bloomfield, NM

Opportunity

The Carson NF offers a tremendous opportunity for a resource assistant in the Wild Horse & Burro Program (WH&B) that will provide a critical benefit to the forest.

Due to the rapidly evolving WH&B Program in the Forest Service, the Carson is in a unique position to develop more WH specialists, coordinators and caretakers. The wide spectrum of our small scale program allows us to embrace innovation and subsequently expose interns to both experience and further develop diverse aspects of wild horse management.

We believe everyone is enriched by experiencing the outdoors and we enhance that experience of the natural environment by serving with the public as partners for environmental stewardship. You will play a critical role towards our important mission by working directly in the Wild Horse & Burro Program.

Key responsibilities for this opportunity include:

• Assisting with bait trapping/gathering wild horses from the Carson National Forest
• Caring and feeding of wild horses while they’re prepared for adoption
• Working with the public and potential adopters to establish new homes for wild horses
• Learning and assisting with the important fertility control program for the wild horses
• Offering insight and input for our social media outlets to further the WH&B program
• Providing input to an Interdisciplinary Team of specialists (range, wildlife, archaeology, etc)
• Assisting in meeting the diverse challenges of a federal land management agency

Preferred background of the intern for this opportunity include:

• Interest in natural resource programs and a multi-use land management agency
• Confidence around horses, especially nervous/wild horses
• Desire to work outdoors; familiarity with feeding/watering horses
• Willingness to engage public and partners on wild horse program

Information about the WH&B Program, forest and region that may be of interest to applicant:

This is a valuable mentoring opportunity to work directly with the Carson NF Wild Horse Coordinator and learn first-hand the delicate balance of sustainable use and resource benefit, while engaging public and partners with differing viewpoints for collaborative environmental stewardship related to the WH&B Program.

Our program is unique in that it is small yet full spectrum as it begins in the field and includes bait trapping, some training/gentling, finding the adoptive home and eventual titling inspections. We have a wild horse facility dedicated to short term holding of Carson NF horses, and those transferred from other forests, while they receive appropriate veterinary care, and feeding/watering until a new home is secured via our adoption program. We are also currently developing an identification program that eliminates freeze-branding and instead utilizes a microchip much like household pets. This is much safer and less traumatic for the wild horses.

Information on housing

The selected intern could enjoy staying in a 24ft camping trailer set up at an RV park located only a few blocks from the Jicarilla Ranger Station for most the time when working in Bloomfield. Occasionally government housing could be available when working in El Rito. Workstations are available at both office locations.

Interested applicants, please call Joshua Rosenau at 406-275-4056.