Visitor Services Assistant

Bitter Lake NWR is seeking enthusiastic volunteers to staff the refuge visitor center/nature store and assist with environmental education and interpretive programs. This is a three-day per week position, working eight hours a day with a one hour lunch break). Bitter Lake NWR has a visitor center that is open Monday-Saturday from 8 am – 4 pm. Your primary responsibilities will include: greeting the public at the visitor center front desk, providing accurate refuge information and wildlife viewing advice, answering the refuge phone, and operating a cash register. Other duties and opportunities to serve are available depending on staffing and your abilities. Famous for its dragonfly population, volunteers may be asked to assist with the annual Dragonfly Festival.

Volunteers are invited to experience working and living at a true desert oasis. Situated between the Chihuahuan Desert and short-grass prairies of the Southern Plains, the refuge is a unique wildlife sanctuary. Bitter Lake NWR, known for its great abundance of migratory birds and diverse wildlife includes more than 28,000 acres of grassland prairies, red bluff landscape, numerous sink hole formations, natural springs, and lush wetlands.

RV sites are located within refuge housing, with easy access to the city of Roswell, New Mexico. Accommodations for grocery shopping, restaurants, movie theaters, medical facilities and others shopping are only 7 miles away. Major cities such as Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Lubbock and El Paso are about three hours from the refuge.  An hour west of the refuge is the city of Ruidoso located in the southern Rockies. Here recreational opportunities include: hiking, fishing, snow skiing, gambling and horseracing. Carlsbad Caverns National Park and the Living Desert Museum are only two hours south of the refuge. Other points of interest include the Alien Museum, Pecos Valley Winery, and the Old Bookstore in Artesia.