Become a Wild Thing!

U.S. Fish & Wildlife volunteer measure the wing span of a goose. Photo credit: USFWS

Volunteer with Region 2 of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

Last year almost 36,000 volunteers contributed more than 1.3 million hours of their time. We need your help. Will you join us? Volunteers help us in almost everything we do, from monitoring bird populations, to leading school groups on a refuge; from clearing trails to stocking fish; from helping in the office to repairing equipment. If you have a desire to help, we need you.

Although we always have a need for general volunteers, some times we may have a specific need for certain skills. Specific vacancies for volunteering are posted here.

Each U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service office recruits and trains its volunteers. The best way to find out how to volunteer is to contact your local U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Office or go to Opportunities.

Special Requests and further information can be obtained directly from
UFWS R2 Volunteer Coordinator, Juli Niemann.

Send completed form to volunteer coordinator at address or fax number below:

Volunteer Coordinator
500 Gold SW, 4th Floor
Albuquerque, NM 87102, USA.
Telephone: 505/248-6635
Fax: (505)-248-6874
E-mail: FW2 Regional Volunteer Coordinator

Working With Others

Children watch an environmental demontrsation from a volunteer. Photo credit: USFWS

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service helps protect a healthy environment for fish and wildlife...and for people. We encourage Americans to enjoy the outdoors. In all of our activities you are part of the equation. Our national wildlife refuges provide hunting and fishing opportunities formillions of Americans...and spectacular sites for the rapidly growing number of Americans who do their wildlife-watching with binoculars, camera, or sketch pad. Our world-famous Duck Stamp contest yields high quality art for each year's migratory bird hunting stamp--and many bucks for the ducks! Our landowner assistance prorgrams and grants encourage people like you to maintain and conserve fish, wildlife, plants, and their habitats right there in your own hometowns. And we manage the nation's Federal Aid programs for fish and wildlife, through which hunters and anglers pay to sustain their sports...and a brighter future for America's wildlife.

We work for you...by working with you to conserve the nature of America!

NEWS & EVENTS

Photo Credit: Marty Cornell, USFWS

Texas Mid-Coast NWR's Discovery Environmental Education Program

Volunteers, partners and the Texas Mid-Coast National Wildlife Refuges bring the Discovery Environmental Education Program (DEEP) alive. Thousands of students and adults participate each year in an intensive and unique hands-on experience in outdoor education where they are able to experience nature.

Texas Mid-Coast Training Technician, Bryan Adams, coordinates the program. With the assistance of devoted volunteers, DEEP enables a child to experience the Texas Gulf coast much as it was before the arrival of humans. Volunteers bring their enthusiasm for the natural world to students who are amazed at what is outside their front door.

Students are naturally curious and enjoy being outdoors and this program taps into their enthusiasm and directs it into a science learning experience. DEEP influences the lives of the participating children and helps them to appreciate the gift of living on the Texas coast.

Headquartered at the Discovery Center at the Brazoria NWR, students discover a multitude of invertebrates in a freshwater pond by dipping a net, they touch and learn about reptiles, and pull a seine through a salt marsh. They learn the ways in which water chemistry affects life, and the importance of wetlands to the fisheries of the Gulf of Mexico. The Discovery Center allows students to bring samples from the wild into a laboratory setting and conduct experiments and observations they could not make in the field. The Discover Outpost, at the Hudson Woods Unit of San Bernard NWR, provides opportunities for students to discover the ecology of a bottomland forest and the impact invasive species have on the natural environment.

Partnerships have helped to build DEEP and encourage involvement by new schools and organizations over the program's 12 year history. A Nature of Learning grant to the Friends of Brazoria Wildlife Refuges enabled Northside Elementary School in Angleton, Texas to incorporate multiple field trips to the refuges into their fourth grade curriculum. This program provides an intensive year of experience bringing nature into all subject materials. A Coastal Management Plan grant from Texas General Land Office was instrumental in providing environmental education equipment and displays for the Discovery Center. The Cradle of Texas Chapter of the Texas Master Naturalists supports the program and is the source for most of the trained volunteer docents. Nearly 2000 volunteer hours were donated by these volunteers during field trips in 2006.

DEEP fosters a lifelong love for wild places in the children who will be the future leaders of the community.

View a video on volunteering from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Director