There were a lot of new experiences for me during this internship with a few common themes from previous jobs that I have worked. Some of the new experiences include learning new flora of the Pacific Northwest, using keys to identify plants, and conducting rare plant surveys. One theme that was again present for me this year is that the battle against invasive species is always an uphill battle. It can be hard to see the difference you are making especially when you will not be able to see the effect of your hard work the next year. Depending on the level of infestation, it can be really difficult for one or two people to treat an area, even with using herbicide. It is important when doing this type of work to make small goals for yourself and to treat areas where you can get the most bang for your buck. This way you can make a bigger impact and also feel good about the work that you are doing. I have been working on lots of weed treatment projects the past month from pulling/spraying false brome, spraying blackberry, lopping one-seeded hawthorne, and spraying Canada thistle. It would be an understatement to say that this month has flown by.

A patch of blackberry that I sprayed one week prior. It is already started to die back a little bit which made me feel good.

A patch of milk thistle that I sprayed one week prior as well. As you can see it is mostly dead and I wanted to do a follow up to make sure it all dies before it seeds next year.

Cat’s face spider

While I was cutting some hawthorne down with handsaws this week, I felt something crawling on my neck. Not thinking anything of it I brushed it away with my hand. A few seconds later I felt something crawling on my neck again and I swatted it off me this time. This spider flew off and landing on this leaf. I was paranoid the rest of the day. It was kind of a cool looking spider but I just did not want it crawling on me. I think it may be a cat’s face spider or some other type of orb weaver.

Overall, I would say the internship was a success for me and I really enjoyed my time working here in Oregon. I learned a lot of new things and invasive species in Oregon have certainly piqued my interest. Although I am moving back home for now, I am not crossing Oregon off the list of places I would want to live and work again.

Botany Staff at Roseburg District BLM

Signing off now.

-Will Farhat (Botany Intern at Roseburg District BLM)

Verbesina enceloides collecting

Well, at this point in the year, many other CLM interns are wrapping up their internship. However here in the Chihuahuan Desert, our seed season is just beginning to ramp up. Usually the desert has a monsoon season with heavy rains in the summer, but this year the monsoons came in August, which is later than normal. We were able to watch the desert transform practically overnight from the dry, dusty landscape to bursts of blooms. In particular, we have been seeing a TON of Verbesina enceloides. We were also able to make some other fun collections this month like Chilopsis linearis (Desert willow), Gaillardia pinnatafida, and Thelsperma megapotacium.

Desert Willow collection site with the Guadalupe Mountains in the background

Luckily these collections were in beautiful locations in the foothills of the Guadalupe Mountains! The grasses around here like Aristida purpurea, Bouteloua curtipendula, Setaria leucopia, and Sporobolus airoides have been seeding lately as well.

Me next to my poster at the New Mexico Native Plants Converence

Earlier this month, we were able to attend the New Mexico Native Plant Society Conference in Silver City, NM. This was a weekend of fun, learning, and meeting lots of people who care deeply about the environment and native plants. We were able to present posters about some of our projects as Seeds of Success interns during the informational sessions. There were also field trips where we were able to see more of southwest New Mexico. Silver City is located conveniently close to the Gila National Forest and City of Rocks State Park, which were full of diverse plant species – and some I recognized from the Chihuahuan desert!

City of Rocks State Park

Another highlight of the trip was getting to meet our peers working in different Seeds of Success programs around the state.

Rainbow over the Gila to close out the first night of the conference!

We are now about half way through our internship, so I’m excited to see what these next couple of months in Carlsbad have in store for us!

-LMS

Carlsbad Field Office, Bureau of Land Management

As my internship starts to really wind down (only four more weeks left, where did the time go!?), I have been reflecting on how far I’ve come over the years. This isn’t my first rodeo, as some would say. After graduating with my bachelor’s degree back in 2012 I really didn’t have much of an idea about what I wanted to do. I was too focused on finishing school to plan much further. I didn’t even know field biology was an option until an ecology instructor mentioned her work as a contractor surveying endangered and threatened species in the bay area. I remember thinking, “wait, I can find a job working outside? Cool!” I really had no idea what I was getting into.

And so I have worked many seasonal field positions over the years. I started out wanting to work with wildlife and soon realized plants are way cooler (and they don’t move, hence surveys at ungodly hours are not required!). It took a year or two to be able to secure work during the off season (other winters I did restaurant work and worked at my local ski area or traveled with whatever savings I had accumulated, volunteering while traveling makes this much more feasible). Each year the position lasted a little longer and paid a little better. Each year I learned more and made some great contacts. This accumulation of experience and contacts eventually led me to graduate school (Plant Biology and Conservation program at Northwestern and our favorite place the Chicago Botanic Gardens) and then to this internship, which is part of my graduate program requirements.

This internship has been an excellent experience to apply my past experience in the field and the knowledge I gained in school. While most of my previous experience has been in vegetation surveying, this position helped me to learn a lot about rare plant monitoring. On top of the expected duties of interns in the rare plant monitoring program I also worked on independent projects.

One project, which will also be part of my graduation requirements for my master’s degree, has been species distribution modeling, a skill I acquired during my graduate course work. Using MaxEnt, I modeled current and future predicted ranges for Sclerocactus glaucus, a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. This species is up for re-evaluation of status, so my mentor is working on supplying the US Fish & Wildlife Services with information related to the species. It’s been really fulfilling to be able to utilize the skills I acquired in grad school to this project, like researching peer-reviewed articles, running models (with the help of Arcmap) and technical writing. I’m excited that my report will be included in the official report provided to USFWS.

I’ve also been working on habitat assessments for Sclerocactus glaucus using data from the BLM AIM (Assessment Inventory Monitoring) program. As much of my field experience has been with this program, is was really cool to be able to use the data.

As I finish up here I am happy to report that I will be working again shortly. I have been offered a permanent (well long term contract anyways) full time job here in the Denver area. I’m excited to have finally gained more permanent employment, though I will miss being in the field a lot! While this job is mostly office work, it is within the realm of field biology and I know I will learn a lot. This really is a big transition for me! I haven’t lived anywhere longer than 1 year since 2012. It will be really nice but also a little weird for me to not be moving around constantly. But I think it is time for me to settle down and pass the torch along.

For all you out there just starting out, have patience and enjoy this time. Every position offers you the opportunity to learn and gain experience and make new friends and great contacts. To be honest, I haven’t had to interview for a job in years. Once you establish yourself as a hardworking, helpful, intelligent individual people will look out for you. They will offer you jobs or recommend you to other people. Be open to positions that you might not think are that great. My first paid field position wasn’t something I thought would be cool. I figured I would stick it out and get the experience. It turned out to be a great experience where I made great friends and started making good contacts. On the contrary, the positions I was most excited for turned out to be less than ideal.

I know I will miss the excitement of figuring out what my next adventure will be. I will miss the adventure of moving somewhere new, remote and wild. I will miss the adventure of making new friends in desolate places. I will miss living in crazy, middle of no-where places where you can see the milky way from your backyard. I will miss camping in the middle of nowhere with my crew, just finding a decent enough spot off a dirt road to park the truck and pitch your tent. I will miss the long, hot, dusty days in the field finding cool rocks and getting real intimate with all those plants out there. Long story short there is a lot I will miss!

But I’m excited for my next adventure, one that delves into realms I have yet to experience. I am ready to “level up.” I am excited for all of you too! Happy Adventures and Good LUCK!

July has been a month of working on weather stations and wells in Natrona County. My mentor, Shane Evans, is responsible for maintaining 18 gauging stations across Natrona county. All of the stations have at least a rain gauge, a temperature gauge, and a transmitting antenna. Some of the more complicated ones measure stream height, and take water samples.

Rainfall is the main determinant of the maximum yield of rangelands, so rainfall data is especially important to ranchers. The stream height data helps Shane track the response of a stream to rainfall inundation. If a stream is well-vegetated and not too deeply incised, then its banks should be able to withstand high flow events without eroding.

Shane has been working on updating the computer systems in all of the gauging stations and replacing the pressure sensors. I’ve had the chance to come out with Shane and learn a bit about wiring. I’ve also had the chance to do some demolition work on old weather stations!

Shane also oversees all of the livestock wells on public land in Natrona county, a number close to 300! The wells are extremely important in the arid high desert: they allow ranchers to move their cattle through areas with no surface water. Often in the summer, Shane gets concerned calls from ranchers explaining that a well is not producing very much water. Would you please come out and take a look? Of course! Off we go in Shane’s F-350. We bring electrical tools to check on the solar power, and the computer which controls the pump. We also look around the area to make sure that water is not seeping out of a broken pipe before it reaches the troughs.

Shane’s F-350 pulled up next to Cowboy Well

I love the variety of work we get to do in the hydrology division. Water is vital to all life, but its importance is especially prevalent in the arid west, a fact which keeps the hydrologists very busy!

Working in the wildlife department at the BLM office in Rawlins, Wyoming, I’ve had a wide array of experiences.

The main goal of my mentor, Tony, one of the seven biologists at this field office, is to get an idea of what amphibians and reptiles are present in Wyoming. Not a lot of work has been done in Wyoming around amphibians, and since my independent study was about salamanders, I have been super excited to contribute to this goal!

Our main project is to determine what species are present in an area up by Ferris Mountains. To achieve this, we set up 12 traps, each consisting of short, hardware cloth fencing, pitfall traps, funnel traps, and cover boards. The idea behind the fence is that reptiles, amphibians, and small mammals will run into the fence and either fall into a pitfall trap or walk (slither) into a funnel trap. I’ve had the opportunity to handle and process many animals now, including rattlesnakes, garter snakes, bull snakes, horned lizards, shrews, mice, voles, and pocket gophers! After we find an animal, we process them. Since this is a herptile study, we care more about the reptiles and amphibians we find than the mammals. So, we take measurements of all animals but tag or mark only the amphibians and reptiles, with some exceptions. For mammals, we simply take measurements of their hind foot, tail, and ear. For snakes and lizards, we measure tail, SVL (snout-vent length), mass, and sex them. After that, we PIT tag them, which involves making a tiny incision on their side or belly, placing a PIT tag under the skin through the incision, and sealing them up with NuSeal. We read the PIT tag number using a reader so that we can identify the individual upon recapture. For amphibians, we gather similar data but instead of PIT tagging, we perform toe clippings on frogs and don’t actually have a good way of marking or tagging salamanders, since they regenerate appendages. After processing the animals, we set them free if they are alive. If the animal is dead, which sometimes happens with the mammals (to my dismay), we keep them in Ziplock bags and store them in a freezer at the office until we can take them to a museum to be identified.

Holding my second rattlesnake of the summer! It is tubed for our safety!

I have a few favorite things about doing these surveys:

• Finding the mammals (alive)! Even though I truly admire snakes for their unique morphological traits and adaptations, and amphibians for my experience with them, the mammals are my favorite animals to find in our traps. I think it’s simply because we have more common with the small mammals then the reptiles and amphibians; they are easy to connect with!
• When we find a species that hasn’t been at our traps yet! This is the second year of surveys, and the last time we trapped was the first time we had a tiger salamander (Ambystoma mavortium) in one of our traps! Finding an animal that is new to the traps is one of the greatest feelings ever. Now we know that these traps work on these salamanders!
• When we have a mammal that isn’t aggressive, is docile, friendly, and lets us handle them! I’ve noticed that mice are the most docile, while voles are the most aggressive. So when we have a mammal that is friendly, it’s comforting to know that we might not be causing them huge amounts of anxiety.
• Noticing differences in physical traits and personality between animals of the same species. For example, we found a vole that had a dot of white-colored fur on both hips, but we never noticed this color and pattern on any other vole.

For the first time ever, we found two live mice huddled together in the same trap. My partner held one while I held the other. It was really cute to see them sniff each other and then ‘boop snoots’, even as we held them! It goes to show how unphased they are by humans.

This is the vole with two white spots on its lower back!

In addition to our monthly trapping, I’ve done raptor nest monitoring, burrowing owl monitoring, dipnetting ponds, a wild horse gather, horned lizard surveys and my two favorite: endangered Wyoming toad surveys and endangered black-footed ferret surveys! I’ will talk more about those in my next post!

All in all, I am super grateful that I acquired this internship because I think it will be a key step on my career path towards working with animals, which has always been my dream. Now with this experience, this dream actually seems achievable. Thanks CBG!

So, I have a funny story to share. This past spring I was having an argument with my best friend about where to go backpacking for spring break. She wanted to go back to the Smokey Mountains because we had been previously but didn’t really get to see much of them. I, on the other hand, wanted to come to Arkansas. We went back and forth for a couple weeks researching different trails and trying to come up with ways to convince each other, and, well ultimately she won (but by that point it felt like a mutual decision). We went to the Smokey’s and had honestly an amazing backpacking trip. However, I still wanted to see Arkansas because, I guess I had just heard great things.

Lo-and-behold, only about a month later I found out that I had gotten a job in Arkansas! If we are going to talk about reality creation….anyways….I figured I would share some pictures of Arkansas and inform everyone that I have been enjoying this state, despite the rocky start at trying to make my way here.

caught this deer mid-tree

We have ‘mountains’, as someone who grew up in Arizona, they are more so just large hills…but, they count

More ‘natural’ stand of pine trees (1st picture was in the seed orchard)

……As for what Arkansas and this internship has been like since I’ve been here…..

This truly is the natural state and I have become acquainted with much of it. Through my process of driving around trying to find milkweed, to doing plant collections in natural areas, to just general exploration on my own, I would say I am getting a lay of the land. I do think I must have brought the rain from New Orleans because everyone in my office tells me this is one of the wettest years in a while. That just goes to show that global weirding is hitting Arkansas.                                                                                                                                             What is global weirding you ask?                                                        Well I’m glad you asked! I went to a lecture a couple months back where the speaker told us that they got better responses when they called it global weirding rather than global warming. I think this is because everyone who pays attention to the weather—which according to the ‘small talk trope’ is everyone—understands that the weather isn’t completely normal, and isn’t going back to whatever normal was in the first place.

The thing about this internship is that wherever you are, and I’m sure other interns can attest to this, you are going to meet people who work in your office (and in town) who have opinions that you don’t share–such as whether climate change is real *eye roll*. This is especially true if you are moving somewhere you didn’t grow up, but it can be the case regardless!

I’m not going to advise anyone to tread lightly necessarily, but take the time to understand the people around you who have opposing views. How else are you going to have a full experience with the forest service/BLM? Talk to the locals! Maybe you’ll scare people off by using the word evolution (I made that mistake in the first week…), but this is your chance to broaden your horizons. And again, I’m not promoting conflict, but take the time to ask people why they believe the things they do and you will get a better idea of how decisions may be made in your office, organizations your office works with, and the local government (which most definitely effects your office).

I’m not entirely sure how I got on that tangent…but the point is that I have grown a bunch since coming to Arkansas. I’ve grown professionally just in terms of working in an office and I’ve grown personally just by talking to people that I wouldn’t have otherwise come into contact with. People that live in Arkansas, and especially people who hunt, understand the importance of conservation, even if they may not be using the same vocabulary as you are. It can be easy to write people off, but I promise you will have a better time if you don’t make a judgement until you really get to talk to someone. I disagree with the expression “People will Surprise you” because if you’re surprised, then you obviously weren’t paying enough attention to the fact that there are all kinds of people everywhere. Just, don’t let stereotypes determine your experience. Make the decision consciously of how you act around people and how you treat them.

Many of us are just out of undergrad and that can be scary! Being in school for so long makes us feel comfortable in that system. Not that I feel like I’m in the real world yet but hey, I don’t have homework. When I get off work I get to make my own homework and really discover what I want to spend my time doing. I’m not going to be cheesy and say that ‘I’m finding myself’ because I know I’m not (was I lost in the first place…) but I did realize that I don’t want to live anywhere else but New Orleans at this point in my life. I did discover that it can be just as easy to make friends as it can be to loose them. And I did discover that 4 months in a new place with new people and completely new tasks really does wire you to think about things differently. As much as I’m missing NOLA and as much as I feel stagnant at times trying to decide what I want to do with my life, I wouldn’t trade my time with CLM in Arkansas for anything.

…Sorry I promised I wouldn’t get cheesy…

To apologize, here is a picture of some seeds because aren’t seeds beautiful?

Rachel

Ouachita National Forest

Hello! My name is Renata Kamakura and I am one of the CLM interns working for the Forest Service in Oregon. A lot has happened since I started in June but I figured I would give you all a bit of a sense of where I was at when the internship first began. I promise I will catch you up on the last couple of months at a later date. So here you go: when it all began ….

*Time machine moving you back to June 2018*

Hello! I just started work in Cottage Grove, OR a few weeks ago. I had a mad dash to the start of this internship with only a day between when I graduated and the start of the training in Chicago. As such, I spent the first week trying to catch my breath, unpack, and get somewhat oriented. That said, while slightly discombobulated, I still learnt a ton from the people at the Dorena Genetic Resource Center (DGRC). It is an interesting place that has more of a nursery feel than most Forest Service locations but the people are incredible, with both skill and a sense of humor. It also has some remarkable sunrises and sunsets, which I have been thoroughly enjoying since we work four 10-hour days.

Sunset at the Raised Beds

We ended up doing a range of things like splitting ferns (to try to double how many ferns we have to use), thinning species (to help reduce mold spread and infestations), transplanting Port-Orford Cedar (POC) (moving them into larger containers so they can continue to grow), and just general inventorying and cleaning that needs to happen to keep the place running.

One of the Greenhouses

As we go about the day-to-day tasks, we get tid-bits on why we are doing what we’re doing and how it fits into the broader restoration goals. I figured I might as well pass on some of these since they are a bit more interesting than just me regaling you with stories of getting caught in spider webs while contorting myself around POC branches trying to find the tree’s identification number (let’s just say I have never been known for my grace). As an aside, I do have a photo of a weed-mat I managed to get over a yellow jacket nest on a young pine sapling. There was only moderate grumbling from the occupants and a brief stare down between myself and one of the more defensive yellow jackets.

Wasp nest on sapling and under the weed mat, by some miracle

Rather than being due to some kind of herculean bravery or skill on my part it was mostly due to me not noticing the nest early enough, deciding I was in too deep at that point, and then just trying to placate the yellow jackets by softly murmuring to them as I tried to get the mat on properly. I must have looked like a maniac but the weed mat is on and I didn’t get attacked so I’ll consider it a victory. Though I would not recommend trying that at home; I just got really lucky (or perhaps the yellow jackets sensed that I was more just blind than malicious) and yellow jacket stings are not pleasant.  Unfortunately some of my fellow workers were not so lucky and one poor guy got stung at least 5 times.

Tangent aside, one of the interesting things about DGRC is that it is apparently one of only two places in the country that grows ferns from spores. That took me by surprise because there are a lot of places growing plants in the US and you’d figure they’d be able to do it if they can grow everything from giant pines to hundreds of different types of roses. Also, the people working with the ferns at DGRC treat the process with a certain nonchalance and do not make it seem like it was impossibly difficult (which, in retrospect, is more a testament to their humility than anything else). If you do a quick google search you’ll find bunch of articles and videos (which are helpful but their camerawork is less impressive than their knowledge of fern biology) on how to grow ferns from spores. John T. Mickel, in an article he wrote for the New York Times in 1979, just called in a “modest challenge” that admittedly “does take patience and care” but seems doable for the average Joe. Now, all this made me confused as to why only one other place in the states was growing ferns from spores given that you get a ton more individuals that way, but the handy Mr. Mickel shed a bit of light on that. He explains that “A major problem in growing ferns from spores is contamination. Spores of mosses, fungi and algae are everywhere – in the air, on all surfaces, in tap water and in unsterilized soil.” So, as you try to propagate the ferns, you have to try to avoid propagating the “invading hoards” of everything else (Mickel 1979; the language seems a bit dramatic but I suppose one has to really drive home the point). If you are trying to do this on an industrial scale, I can see why it might not be worth the trouble when you can just split the ferns, which only requires some water, soil, and a good knife (basically anyway). It is also not the easiest thing ever to separate out the young fern individuals without damaging their roots to be able to move them into their separate pots. There are lots of little things that make the process challenging and it is really cool to see the people here do it with relative ease (or they are just good at pretending it is easy).

So, there you go, random tidbit of the month: growing ferns from spores at a large scale is hard but if you need some sword ferns DGRC know what they’re doing. That and look at what you are doing when you try to put weed mats on plants when there are  nesting yellow-jackets in the area.

Works Cited

Mickel, J. T. (1979, February 4). From Tiny Spores Big Ferns Grow. New York Times, p. 41. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/1979/02/04/archives/from-tiny-spores-big-ferns-grow-big-ferns-grow.html

15 July – 12 August 2018

I have done quite a bit of traveling with this internship, which I find to be both exciting and troubling. This suburban Midwestern gal has meandered through the wild lands of Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada, and Utah in the past three months. It’s been neat to discover various pieces of so many states in such a short time, but I am deeply conflicted by the amount of traveling this job requires. In all honesty, I find this internship to be a bit of a paradox. I understand climate change to be one of the reasons this internship exists: as the frequency and intensity of wildfires increase in the Western United States, it’s even more important to have a bank of diverse and native seed available for the restoration of the sagebrush steppe. (I have recently learned a “steppe” is a large area devoid of trees.) Despite this, I find it difficult to justify the amount of fossil fuels I must burn in order to accomplish my job. Sometimes I spend one-third to one-half of the work week in a vehicle. My ability to justify my gas-guzzling activities is only complicated when the areas I visit do not have large enough plant populations to collect seed from.

My frequent traveling began in mid-July, when I had the privilege of working with the region’s range crew. I was working with four men to monitor sites in the Curlew National Grassland for the control of leafy spurge (Euphorbia esula), a noxious weed. We were assigned the task of returning to sites where beetles (Oberea erythrocephala and Apthona spp.) and sheep have been used to control leafy spurge. We had 12+ year-old photos of the habitat and the occasional GPS coordinates (which we soon learned were not very accurate…) to guide us to the sites, complete vegetation surveys and take some more photos. It was pretty dang cool to look down at a photo from 2006 showing a sea of leafy spurge and look up at the exact same landscape in 2018 and find very few leafy spurge plants. I guess the sheep and beetles have been doing their job. My favorite part was using sweep nets to scoop up and count the spurge-eating beetles. My least favorite part was the 4 hours of driving each day.

If it weren’t for biocontrol, this habitat would likely be a sea of yellow, due to the aggressiveness of leafy spurge. The yellow you see here is primarily from yellow rabbitbrush (Chrysothamnus viscidiflorus).

Oberea erythrocephala bores into the stems of leafy spurge; the Apthona spp. (not pictured) consume the leaves of the plant.

As the end of July rolled around, my Seeds of Success project began to get into full-swing and that’s when some serious traveling began. I have spent quite a bit of time working with a crew from the Rocky Mountain Research Station in Boise, which included Allison Buiser – another CLM intern! It’s always great to have company. Since I have been hunting wildflowers in Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada, and Utah, I have encountered cattle and sheep herds on the move, visited some neat geological areas like Balanced Rock and Little City of Rocks, traveled straight through the Humboldt National Forest in one day (possibly because of a missed turn…), climbed many slopes covered in loose rock, and even started dreaming about some of the species I need to collect seed from.

Machaeranthera canescens – one of the species I need to collect for Seeds of Success. I think this plant is cute, but it has haunted many of my dreams…

Several hundred sheep, seven dogs, two horses, and two shepherds creates a bit of a traffic jam on a Forest Service road. There were no casualties though!

Allison (right) and me (left) cheesin’ at Balanced Rock – we thought it looked like such a happy rock!

Little City of Rocks was an exciting place to explore. What do you see in these rocks?

Some 17-year-old gazetteers helped Allison and I navigate through the Humboldt National Forest. Kind of…

When Allison and I took a lunch break in the Humboldt National Forest, I couldn’t resist splashing into the stream. It had been so long since either of us had worked near a body of water.

There have been many disheartening days where I have not found any of the plants I am looking for. However, I usually finish the week with at least one population to collect seed from, which is definitely better than nothing. And while I am not fond of the amount of gas I burn in order to travel to all these sites, I am still excited to have been so many new places in such a short time.

Cheers to more adventures!

Shannon

USFS Idaho Falls, ID

I spent some quality time out in the field conducting the last of the field surveys. Although not here yet, autumn is on its way.The colors are beginning to appear.

I finished up the lake surveys with a monster day of paddling a collecting, about 15 miles in total. The wind was not helpful in the least.

We spent several days working on the bilberry project. We planted about 450 plugs at three new sites, weeded the others to try and help with establishment. Another day, I went out with some wildlife biologists to evaluate the potential for sustaining a  population of blue northern butterfly and some ideas for sourcing them from on the forest

I played hero for the day by discovering a new population of Panax quinquefolius. Just a couple of plants but also some evidence of seed production.

Panax quinquefolius

Some other interesting plants from the forest:

Our job has become a treasure hunt on a grand scale. The treasure we seek is not gold, or diamonds: it’s water.

We are now well into the process of spring inventory. Twenty years ago, BLM hydrologists went all over Natrona County and catalogued information about every single spring on BLM land. The hydrologists took photos, made maps, and took water quality samples. The time is ripe for new hydrologists to begin the task of assessing the health of these wetland areas.

Armed with topographic maps from the 90’s, and a couple of old photographs, we set out in our pick-up to check the wetlands. The search is sometimes simple: a spring may lie just off a county road, but often, things get complicated. Two-tracks visible on satellite imagery are not always what they appear to be on the ground. There may be a giant rut running through the center of the two tracks. One false move, and the truck is almost guaranteed to be stuck.

I’m always excited when we find the wetlands. We may have been hiking or driving for an hour, not seeing a trace of green vegetation, or water, when suddenly we come upon a wet meadow with a giant cottonwood swaying in the wind. Water in the desert! Treasure found!

Sometimes the spring is very colorful and smelly!

The next task is to take some quick, but informative water quality measurements: conductivity, pH, and temperature. Then we take photographs, and map the area precisely using arc Collector on a tablet. Afterwards we inventory the riparian plants found in the area and assess the ecological condition of the spring using a checklist designed by the Natural Resource Conservation Association. Then it’s on to the next spring! Only three hundred more to go!