Today was my first day back in the office after spending all of last week at the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service's (FWS) National Conservation Training Center in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. I went there to learn everything there is to know about species recovery planning and implementation. Any species listed as endangered or threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) must have a recovery plan. The training course was intense, with few moments spared for oneself or non-recovery talk. The lack of readily accessible and reliable cell phone and internet service further isolated everyone on campus from the rest of the world. In a way, it was a nice respite; however, there was little escape from one another or from the topic at hand: recovery, recovery, and oh, MORE species recovery.
My classmates were a mix of FWS employees as well as some fellow NOAA Fisheries Service employees from other regions (e.g., Alaska). Our instructors were diverse, intelligent, and engaging. Overall, the course was good, with some ups and downs with my level of interest and with the level of applicability of the course concepts to coral recovery. I think one of the most interesting portions of the class was the guest speaker presentation on recovery of the endangered short-tailed albatross.
After a week at the center, sleeping in dormitories, eating in a cafeteria filled with buffets of amazing food, and winding down in the evenings at the "lounge" filled with giant mugs of local microbrews for $5 grew stale. I was at least 5 pounds heavier and ready to come home. (Seriously, mealtime was akin to eating on a cruise - everything was too good to turn down!) That being said, I would not turn down another opportunity to attend a training. The experience was great and the location was beautiful. We were in the middle of nowhere, west of the Appalachian Trail, and I saw four deer, one cardinal, and one bunny. The deer were just steps away from me and completely content, gnawing on tree bark and shrubbery in the wooded areas. If I actually liked and knew my birds better, I probably would have come away with a longer list than that. I felt like I saw more wildlife in one week there than I do all year in Florida, but thinking about it again, I just see different wildlife at home. My classmates from Wyoming and California - they don't see manatees, mullet, snook, tarpon, or dolphins swimming just off the seawall next to the office. And they don't have lorikeets and ibis and pelicans. Regardless of the wildlife that we do run into on a regular basis, we all work to protect our backyard treasures, no matter how uphill or impossible the task may seem. The one vital lesson I did take away from my class is this: as soon as you say a species cannot be recovered, you throw hope out the window. Where would any of us be if we did that?
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