Employment Opportunities
Coho Salmon Monitoring Internships
Seeking spring interns to help with Rotary Screw Trap season!
Are you interested in natural resources and/or fisheries? Want to spend the spring contributing to a decades-long Coho salmon research project in the Coos watershed? Apply for our spring internship (early March through late May; exact dates TBD).
Interns will be checking a Rotary Screw Trap and weighing, measuring, and micro-chipping juvenile salmon as they make their way from spawning grounds out to the estuary and eventually the ocean.
We have a work experience and academic credit pathway, and the option for a stipend or academic credit. Read more about the options below.
**Must have a flexible schedule with two free days per week (10+ hours total) and transportation to fields sites 20 minutes outside of town.
Work will take place between early March and late May. Deadline to apply is February 6 by 5 pm.
Questions? Contact ahansen@cooswatershed.org.
Choose a path
We offer two pathways here for our interns. Our Academic Credit Opportunity offers college students a chance to turn their work experience into academic credit for their hours worked on the LCM project. Internship hours take place within a school academic term. Our Work Experience Opportunity is for any growing professional looking to gain experience in this field of study, and the dates have more flexibility. Read more about each pathway above!
Questions? Email ahansen@cooswatershed.org.
Why complete an internship with CoosWA?
The Coos Watershed Association is a dynamic watershed council working to improve habitat in the Coos basin for Coho salmon. A crucial part in working to recover this species is the Life Cycle Monitoring (LCM) program that collects data on the Coho population in the Coos watershed. The long-time LCM program has largely been successful through the sustained support of interns. In addition to being a vital component of the LCM program, internships offer applicable work experience and references for beginning a career in the natural resource field.
Background info on the Coho Life Cycle Monitoring Program
We have three seasons for internship opportunities, which target different stages of Coho life histories in our freshwater system. The seasons and application dates are below, and applications are reviewed on a rolling basis as they are received.
**When funding is available, we offer $1,500 stipends to our interns.
Summer Season (June-September): As the days lengthen and streams warm, the CoosWA monitoring program pivots to seining: the process of wading through cool creeks on hot days to catch, measure and microchip parr and smolt salmon spending their first summer in the Coos Basin! Applications must be submitted by the second week of May.
Fall/Winter (November-February): When the rain starts and the adult salmon make their return to Coos rivers, our team surveys over 6 miles of spawning grounds to count spawners and redds, and collect biological samples from fish. Applications must be submitted by the second week of October.
Spring Season (March-May): As the streams begin to drop and smolts begin to migrate out to the ocean, we deploy our smolt traps to catch (or re-capture), measure, and microchip fish to track their movements out of the system. Applications must be in by the first week of February.
