Each year, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) Park Ranger Joel Gilb ’21, ’23 helps welcome the roughly 200,000 visitors to the Bosque del Apache NWR who come to enjoy the annual Festival of the Cranes (early December) to witness and photograph the spectacular morning “flyout” of Sandhill Cranes, Snow Geese, and Ross’s Geese that spend their winter at the refuge every year between November and February.

As part of the visitor services team, Joel oversees the public-facing volunteers who work at the visitor desk and the nature center and engages with visitors out on the tour loops and boardwalks who have questions about wildlife and the refuge. 

He said it’s hard to say what his favorite part of his job is, but he especially likes interacting with the public: “There’s a lot for me to do behind the scenes, and I know the volunteers are out there talking to people, but I really like getting out on the flight deck and the loop to see what folks are enjoying.” 

Preparation at NMSU and in the community 

While an NMSU student, Joel was an ever-popular bird walk leader for the Mesilla Valley Audubon Society and already a rock star in the statewide birding community. When shortly after graduation he got the job at Bosque del Apache NWR, there was collective delight throughout the nature community that he was staying in New Mexico.  

Joel had four summer internships at Bosque del Apache, and in 2019 he was their first-ever visitor services intern (most other interns had been biologists). His fourth internship was through the highly competitive USFWS Directorate Fellows Program, and for his program project, he designed and implemented an educational program about the environment and wildlife for 4th grade students in Magdalena, NM.  

Find out more about visiting the Bosque del Apache NWR at https://www.fws.gov/refuge/bosque-del-apache. 

And say “Hi!” to Joel when you are there! 

By Elaine Stachera Simon 

 
New Mexico’s National Wildlife Refuges