Contact: Karen McDonald, Trap Pond State Park, phone: (302) 875-5163 , e-mail: karen.mcdonald@state.de.us
or Jim O'Neill, Cultural and Recreational Resources, phone: (302) 739-4413

New Park Interpreter Hired for Trap Pond State Park

Want to go birding by ear, learn more about bats or how to identify critters by their skulls and bones?

Karen McDonald is Trap Pond State Park's new interpreter and these are just a few of the things she plans to share with visitors to the southern Delaware park that is famed for its baldcypress swamp.

In addition to the past year as a naturalist at Cape Henlopen State Park, McDonald brings to her new job a varied background that includes collecting benthic worms for a University of Delaware College of Marine Studies program, hawk research at the Grand Canyon, monitoring bat populations in northern Virginia for the National Forest Service, teaching botany at the Arkansas National Audubon Society Ecology Camp, and a stint as a park ranger at Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky.

"Karen will be a tremendous asset to Trap Pond State Park," said Division of Parks and Recreation Director Charles Salkin. "She has a real gift for passing on her love of the outdoors."

Among McDonald's priorities when she starts full time at Trap Pond's Baldcypress Nature Center on Sept. 1 are more home schooling and outreach programs. She also will help out with Killens Pond State Park's interpretive programming.

The Lewes resident and Knoxville, Tennessee native has bachelor's degrees in environmental science and philosophy from Ferrum College in Virginia and a master's degree in biology from the University of Central Arkansas.

 

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