Piedmont Community College (PCC) alumnus and 2024 Academic Excellence winner, Maci Mize, recently returned to campus to recap her summer in the Peruvian Amazon during PCC’s first Global Distinction event of the semester.
Mize graduated from PCC with an associate in science degree and from Person Early College for Innovation and Leadership (PECIL) with her high school diploma in May 2024. She is in her first semester at NC State University majoring in Wildlife Science. This past summer she had the opportunity to intern with Hoja Nueva, a wildlife conservation non-profit in Peru, to gain first-hand experience in wildlife rehabilitation and ecological research.
Mize’s passion for animals started at an early age when she started training dogs when she was 12. She began working with wildlife when she was 16 and has served as a summer intern for Australia Zoo.
During Mize’s return to PCC, she spoke with current PCC students seeking to earn a Global Distinction credential upon graduating, along with faculty and staff. PCC’s Global Distinction program allows students to gain global experience through various activities presented throughout the semester.
Mize recapped her experience with caiman surveys, one of her favorite memories from her trip. During a caiman survey, she and others with Hoja Nueva would load up on boats at night and locate caiman in the river. They would measure them, identify the species and gender, and check to see if they previously received a microchip for data collection. These surveys are important because they allow researchers to monitor their populations in the wild, track their movements and learn more about the species. Caimans are similar to alligators and are native to Central and South America.
She even recapped one of her most thrilling experiences – an encounter with a wild jaguar in the middle of the night.
“Just picture me at 2:30 in the morning with a mosquito net over my bed,” Mize recapped. “There’s no door, there are no walls. I’m currently out there in the Amazon and this sound starts happening.”
Mize replayed the recording she took of the jaguar for the audience to hear its intensity.
“Everyone said I was so lucky to have actually heard it because it’s so rare to hear one that close to base,” Mize said. “I didn’t feel very lucky.”
During her time in the Amazon, Mize also had the opportunity to participate in frog surveys, snake surveys and wildlife rehabilitation where she would create vine balls for the large cat species. She would weave vine together and leave a space in the middle for a piece of meat. Vine balls would encourage them to engage both physically and mentally to obtain their food, simulating the challenges they would face in the wild after rehabilitation.
“My experience in the Amazon is genuinely one that I could talk about for hours,” Mize said. “I had an incredible experience and I’m so grateful to Hoja Nueva for giving me the opportunity to be an intern and to learn so much.”
Photo caption: Mize Mize and biologist Dylan Singer with a caiman
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