My name is Ashley Meade and I am a fall 2018 Biological Intern at St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge. I am a Florida native from a seaside town called Stuart.

I graduated from the University of Florida in 2017 with a Bachelor of Science in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, and a minor in Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences. While at UF, I served as Vice President of the UF Student Chapter of The Wildlife Society, where I planned a wild game dinner fundraiser to teach people about game meat, invasive species, and hunting as a tool for conservation. I also was a founding member and historian for a new birding club, GREBE (Gators Ready for Exceptional Birding Experiences). I volunteered on several projects including field work for the Sirenia Project (manatee health checks), photo analysis for a Sarasota Dolphin Research Project predator-prey study looking for shark bites on coastal bottlenose dolphins, and lab work for an Archie Carr Center for Sea Turtle Research study evaluating the effects of green turtle grazing on seagrass carbon dynamics.

My field technician life started when I went nocturnal to work with nesting loggerhead sea turtles at the Bald Head Island Conservancy in North Carolina. There, I performed saturation tagging, lead educational turtle walks, and public nest excavations.

Following graduation, I moved to St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands for 7 months where I worked as a research assistant with the Archie Carr Center for Sea Turtle Research. We studied green turtle grazing dynamics and behavior in Caribbean seagrass meadows. The intent of the study is to calculate the carrying capacity of green turtles across the Caribbean. I am an AAUS Scientific Diver and our research was conducted using SCUBA diving. I also collaborated with the National Park Service at Buck Island Reef National Monument, where I volunteered with their saturation tagging nesting sea turtle project and underwater acoustic array.

For my next field season, I worked for the South Florida Wading Bird Study, a 30-year University of Florida project studying wading birds as indicator species for Everglades restoration success. I drove airboats and waded through tree islands to monitor wading bird reproductive success. We also monitored wading bird populations across the Greater Everglades Ecosystem, flying in a fixed-wing aircraft and using a drone.

In my free time, I enjoy backpacking on the Florida Trail, going to springs, SCUBA or free-diving, biking, and exploring public lands.

I am elated to be working at St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge with an exceptional array of wildlife and ecosystems.