Habitat Restoration

CONWAY, Ark. (July 7, 2008) – When junior Megan McCaghey says she spent two weeks working on “habitat restoration” in New Zealand, she is being a tad euphemistic – and modest. What she doesn’t mention, at least not immediately, is what her work entailed: climbing near-vertical ravines; planting fields of razor-sharp needlegrass; and wading through swamps to collect decomposing rat carcasses.

Did she mention this was volunteer work?

McCaghey, an environmental studies major and biology minor from Little Rock, hopes to spend her adult life working for an environmental NGO. She got her foot in the door this summer through her volunteer work with New Zealand’s Moehau Environment Group (MEG), a non-profit, non-governmental organization that directs restoration efforts on one peninsula of New Zealand’s north island.

MEG’s mission is to rid its target area, the Northern Coromandel peninsula, of non-native species – especially predatory mammals like rats and possums. The organization’s efforts, which include poisoning and setting traps for the invasive mammals, have been very successful. In the long term, that means that native species like the kiwi bird and brown teal duck will thrive. In the short term it meant that McCaghey had a lot of carcasses to collect.

Removing such pests is necessary because of New Zealand’s ecological history. The only non-marine mammals that inhabited the islands during its millions of years of isolation were three species of bats. For that reason, New Zealand’s native wildlife is “ecologically naïve”; the animals never developed the “street smarts” to evade land-dwelling predators.

Although her work was often difficult and unsavory, McCaghey knows it was important. After two days manning the rat traps, she traveled the area with one of the long-term volunteers, seeing up-close the impact of MEG’s work.

“She went through the area and showed us how successful the projects were and all the improvements that had been made,” McCaghey said. “They have removed invasive pine tree species because their needles fall and blanket the forest floor, and native species can’t grow through it. It was remarkable how healthy a forest can become with volunteers and people who are passionate about improving it.”

The predator control work that McCaghey assisted has achieved remarkable results in protecting endangered birds. A radar monitoring program used to track the kiwis was recently terminated because populations have rebounded.

McCaghey’s trip was sponsored and largely funded by the Hendrix Odyssey program, a curricular program that offers funding and credit for students’ experiential learning projects at home and abroad. Her volunteer work earned her an Odyssey credit in the Service to the World category – her second such credit. She got her first last summer for her work with a bobwhite quail restoration program near Austin, Texas.

For McCaghey, who has long been interested in conservation as a career, the trip was a valuable pre-professional opportunity.

“This gave me an idea of the organizations that are out there and the job positions that are available for that line of work – and how rewarding it can be, too,” McCaghey said. “I met a man who had worked in advertising and television for a long time, and he has completely given that up for a much lower salary, in order to work with an organization that he could really put his heart behind. To hear how rewarding the experience had been for him was really encouraging.”

McCaghey, who is the daughter of Denis and Julie McCaghey of Little Rock, attributes her environmental conscience to her upbringing. She lives on the outskirts of the city, and her family has always owned dogs, birds and horses.

“I’ve always lived in kind of a rural environment,” she said. “We do a lot of outdoor activities like canoeing and hiking, and there’s a certain appreciation that develops when nature is a part of your life. It’s meant a lot to me and I care about conserving it.”

Hendrix, founded in 1876, is a selective, residential, undergraduate liberal arts college emphasizing experiential learning in a demanding yet supportive environment. The college is among 165 colleges featured in the 2008 edition of the Princeton Review America’s Best Value Colleges. Hendrix has been affiliated with the United Methodist Church since 1884. For more information, contact Mark Scott at scottm@hendrix.edu or 501-450-1462.