At Baytown and Buffalo Bayou, Bachman and White Rock Lakes, and Ray Roberts Lake State Park, TCA’s summer interns organized their communities to restore wildlife habitat.
These emerging conservation leaders removed over 1000 pounds of litter pollution from Texas waterways, planted thousands of native prairie plants, and advocated for migratory bird protections with city councils and county commissioners.
Habitat restoration is essential. The United Nations ranks habitat loss as the No. 1 threat to wildlife today, above pollution, poaching, invasive species, and even climate change. Our country loses 6,000 acres of open space a day to development and Texas has the highest conversion and land fragmentation rates in the nation. TCA interns’ work of restoring degraded habitat becomes more crucial with every passing day.
TCA’s Careers in Conservation interns also grew their professional networks and exercised project management and communication skills. “It has been an incredible summer. I have learned so much about conservation and why TCA’s work to protect and restore habitat is so important”, says intern Anna Hoskins, a senior at Texas Woman’s University. “TCA is the best!”