An Act To Establish a Comprehensive Wildlife Biology Internship Program

CONCEPT DRAFT SUMMARY

This bill is a concept draft pursuant to Joint Rule 208.

This bill proposes to create a paid internship program in the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife in order to provide beginning wildlife biologists with a diversity of opportunities to increase their experience and make them more versatile and more likely to pursue careers in the State.

The program must:

1. Employ a competitive process to choose interns;

2. Offer a paid internship to each chosen participant for a period of no less than 2 years;

3. Include various fields of study in incremental blocks over the course of the internship; and

4. Be offered to no fewer than 3 interns per year.

It is intended that funding for this program would come, in part, from the consolidation of seasonal and other part-time positions in the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife the duties of which can be performed by interns participating in the program.