Caring for Texas Animals, A Minnesota Native Finds Home Away From Home

“Being able to handle and process a wild-born bird, it just hits home that all of the work you’re doing does really pay off.”

By Travis Putnam HillAugust 10, 2016 9:15 am,

Kristina Borgstrom hails from Minnesota, but through several internships in recent years, she’s found a love for Texas and its wildlife. She spent this summer as an intern at the Attwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge in Eagle Lake, Texas, where she helps monitor the survival of female Attwater prairie chickens and their chicks.

“There aren’t many birds out in this wildlife refuge and you really realize how endangered this species is,” she says. “But being able to handle and process a wild-born bird, it just hits home that all of the work you’re doing does really pay off.”

Borgstrom says the heat out on Texas’ coastal plains is nothing like she experienced in the Upper Midwest, but she’s grown accustomed to it and feels at home.

“The refuge itself is one of my favorite places to visit, particularly in the spring,” she says. “I’ve never seen so many wildflowers that cover a small area of landscape. So it’s just a great feeling to be out in the wild just walking through the trails that we have here at the refuge. It connects you with nature.”