They say that this is a dreary Spring. I agree. Anchorage is typically sunny and mild this time of year, but since I arrived last week I’ve seen more rain than sun, and typically been wearing 2 jackets. Highs in town have been in the low 50’s. The mountains have been getting hammered with snow – up to 12 feet of fresh fluff in some areas – which will keep the alpine plants asleep for the rest of this month and a lot of June. On the bright side (quite literally), first light is at 4 am and last light is at midnight!

I’ve only got a bicycle to get around town, and there is a lovely pedestrian/cyclist trail from the house I’ve rented to the BLM office. It runs along a sinuous creek that is lined by paper birch (Betula papyrifera) and black spruce (Picea mariana). The birch have been cautiously sending out their fresh, nuclear green leaves. Each day feels more like Spring with musky smells and new foliage and bird chirps. Needless to say, this late Spring is making it difficult to botanize. My mentor sent me out to a particular south-facing slope that is known to green up before the rest of the area. I met some old friends from Colorado (Quaking Aspen – Populus tremuloides, Wild Raspberry – Rubus idaeus, and Mountain Ash – Sorbus scopulina) and some new Alaskan folk (Balsam Poplar – Populus balsamifera, Red Fruited Pixie Cup – Cladonia pleurota, Meadow Rue – Thalictrum sparsiflorum).

Red fruited pixie cup lichen nested in a moss I have yet to learn

Apparently there are only 5 tree species in most of Alaska, so they won’t be difficult. A definite challenge, however, will be improving on keying the tough groups. Almost 40% of Alaska is a wetland, and with wetlands come plenty of willows, sedges, lichens and mosses. In fact, Alaska has the highest diversity of sedges in the world, with 155 recognized species and subspecies. In the past I’ve purposefully avoided these tough groups, but I’ll have no excuse to ignore them this time. Catkins…perigynia…gynaecandrous…aphyllopodic…apothecia. Yikes!

An aspen had fallen down a day or two before, allowing me to see the crown of the tree. I’d never gotten such a close look at their catkins before!

Currently I’m in the BLM office in downtown Anchorage, but it looks like I’ll be spending most of my time in the field or at other sites around the city. The Plant Materials Center (PMC) is a research facility up the valley where all of the Seeds of Success material is processed. The state funded this facility to kickstart a native seed industry for the state of Alaska in 1972. Certain wild-collected seeds are grown at the facility to increase the available quantity. The harvested seeds are then sold to local farmers who scale-up the project to sell native seeds to companies for restoration efforts. The PMC cleans about 100,000 pounds of native seeds annually, most of which are grown by these independent farmers. The PMC also works on developing varieties of potato, apple and grains that grow well in Alaska’s climate. I’ll be helping Lyubo, the seed expert there, on some of his spring planting in the upcoming weeks. 

A view of the Chugach mountains from Hope

The University of Alaska Anchorage has a herbarium managed by botanist extraordinaire, Justin Fulkerson. I will collect seeds with him around the state once August comes around. In the meantime, he has plenty of plants than need to be mounted and sorted. I enjoy these sorts of repetitive, mediative tasks. I’ll certainly be using the herbarium as a resource to familiarize myself with Alaskan flora over the next month. In general, it looks like my field season won’t begin until the second week of June, when the plants are really out to play. Until then, I’ll be lending a hand here and there to various projects, familiarizing myself with Alaskan flora, and getting all the BLM trainings I need to shoot shotguns, fly on helicopters, and live safely out of a tent with bears. 

The cycling crew! I’ve never biked with so many folks. What fun!

This weekend I biked to a the small town of Hope with some lovely people who are friends of my housemates. We biked 50 miles out there and 50 back. Notable encounters included 25 bald eagles fishing together and seeing my first arctic tern! This was the opening (or Hopening, as they say) weekend for the bar and the other 2 businesses in the tiny Alaskan town. Plenty of young, recreation oriented people gathered to listen to music, celebrate spring, share stories and fires, and have fun. It was good medicine and soul food. I’m really enjoying how warm and welcoming Alaskans are. I have been adopted into a few different circles of friends, which makes the transition of moving to a new place alone a lot easier.

Fun fact: Marmots are more blonde when they come out of hibernation rather than later in the season because they hibernate in groups, often on top of each other. Throughout their 9-month sleep, they need to urinate, and frequently they do so on their furry comrades. The ammonia in the urine bleaches their fur, hence blonde marmots! While this may make marmots seem strange, humans are perhaps even more wild, because we have done this intentionally. From the Roman empire until just 100 years ago in Japan, human urine was collected to clean spots out of clothes. Ammonia is an important ingredient in many cleaning products today…but it comes from elsewhere. If you see a marmot in the next few weeks, spread the word!

The marshes off of Turnagain Arm provide excellent fish and bird habitat. This is where I saw dozens of eagles. They were too far off to photograph

This is my first official post as an SOS botany intern with the Lander Field Office in WY, and I couldn’t have asked for a more picturesque location to spend this field season.  Since things are just starting up here, my partner and I have yet to spend a ton of time getting to know the flora of central WY; however, this week we began to familiarize ourselves with the BLM field protocol: getting acquainted with different GPS systems, practicing our radio checks–I was surprised how nervous I felt the first time I used one, and of course remembering NOT to lock the keys in the work truck.  Unfortunately, that last item we learned the hard way 🙁 but luckily, we weren’t at all far from the field office, and another intern was more than happy to help…but long story short, if your pack comes with a key loop, use it!

Towards the end of our week, we focused on a project that entailed us surveying several corridors of a field site along the Red Canyon in Fremont county.  In particular, we were looking for two rare plant species that have been identified around the area in previous years.  Phlox pungens is a rare cushion plant that occurs in central WY, not to be confused with Phlox multifora or Phlox hoodii, both common cushion plants in the area.  Apart from having stiffer, more prickly leaves, the main characteristic that allowed us to discern this Phlox species from the other common ones, was the presence of glands at the end of each cilia along the margins of the leaves.  We were successfully able to find populations of P. pungens almost immediately into our search, which was very exciting!

Picture of Pholx pungens (rare).

The other rare plant we were surveying for was Physaria saximontana var. saximontana, which proved to be a bit more challenging to correctly identify, as its sister taxa, which is not considered rare, also occurs frequently throughout this region.  Typically, one can expect to see larger, broader leaves and taller stems and pedicels on the rare species of P. saximontana var. saximontana; however, this part of WY had a rather dry Spring (not nearly as much April rain or snow than seen in years past) so plants that would normally flower in early May might not do so for another week or two.  This also means that the plants we are seeing flower are possibly stunted or smaller from inadequate Spring precipitation.  Therefore, positively identifying P. saximontana var. saximontana, was a bit more challenging, as we didn’t want to confuse the two sister taxa and unintentionally lump them together.  Overall, with the help of our mentor, I believe we were able to correctly discern between the two sister taxa, and give an accurate representation of the P. saximontana var. saximontana populations that occur in the area.

Red Ridge Trail near the Red Canyon in Fremont Co, WY.

Looking forward to a wonderful field season,

Becca Cross

CLM intern, BLM-LFO (Lander Field Office)

It would hardly be a lie to say that my job consists of driving around and looking at plants.  That is the casual answer I have prepared for friends and family from the east coast who politely ask what, exactly, I am doing in Oregon.  It would be closer to the truth to say that my first week as an intern has been a quick introduction to land management topics and plant identification and monitoring.  We have identified and recorded a population of rare plants, taken a tour of recently burned timber sales, and learned how to recognize countless native and non-native grasses and herbs.

(Our first day in the field, finding and recording the size of a threatened Kincaid’s Lupine population.)

So far, my attempts at identifying unknown plants with a dichotomous key have met very little success, but I think improvement is just around the corner.  After a week of whirlwind introductions and training, I have learned one thing above all else: I enjoy the work here and will keep getting better at it.

After all, when this is your office, what’s not to enjoy?

From the Bureau of Land Management office in Roseburg, Oregon.

It’s hard to believe I’ve already finished my first week of interning at the BLM office in Roseburg, Oregon. Growing up in the Midwest, I could never imagine the different kinds of beautiful landscapes that waited in the Pacific Northwest outside of Illinois for me to see. For our first day in the field, we journeyed to a monitoring plot of Kincaid’s Lupine (Lupinus oreganus) which is a federally listed threatened plant. After driving in the mountains, we parked and proceeded to hike to the location of the plot.

Here is a picture of my co-intern, Robin, and one of the BLM botanists, Aaron, that we were assisting. We eventually made it to the plot and started our data collection. It was a 20×20 m plot and we had to record sizes  of the plants and amounts of inflorescences in each 1x1m section. It seemed that the plant population was growing and we even found plants outside of the plot, which indicated that it was spreading.

The next day we went to a different plot of lupines that were planted. I have never seen so much poison oak in my life. It seems that this will be the biggest hazard we will face in the field.

The next day we accompanied a few of the foresters from the BLM office into the field so they could look at several stands for timber sale. I learned a few different things such as that when selling a stand for harvest, they have to leave a certain amount of trees for habitat for wildlife that depend on them. Also, if the stand was burned over (which many of them were from wildfires within the past few years), they did not have to leave any trees for habitat and could sell the whole thing for harvest.

The stand between the rock outcrops and the already harvested stand was being evaluated for sale.

Here is a picture of a pretty gnarly snag that was in a stand being evaluated for timber sale.

Overall, it was a pretty good first week  of breathtaking views and gaining new skills and knowledge. I look forward to what the next couple months of this internship will bring!

Will Farhat – CLM Intern with the Bureau of Land Management Roseburg District

“A man on foot, on horseback or on a bicycle will see more, feel more, enjoy more in one mile than the motorized tourists can in a hundred miles.”

“The extreme clarity of the desert light is equaled by the extreme individuation of desert life forms. Love flowers best in openness and freedom.”

― Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire

My drive out to Colorado began on the foggy North Coast of California. I packed up my car, took a few final moments in the company of the Ocean, cracked open Desert Solitare and headed east.

Having been to the deserts of Southern California only once, the opportunity to spend some time in the deserts of Nevada, Utah, and western Colorado seemed like the perfect opportunity to kill a bit of time on the drive out. I’ve always been fascinated by the desert- the dramatic contrast of the landscape, the strategic adaptations, and resilience of the life forms that exist among it, the hidden gems that exist within it. The sense of calm one can reach in the absence of noise at night, under a spectacular portrait of the nights’ sky.

A few bike rides, and slot canyons later I arrived in Denver, only to find that I would be heading back to the high deserts of Colorado in my first few weeks of my internship. For the next few months, I will be working out of the Colorado BLM State office under State botanist Carol Dawson doing rare plant demography and monitoring throughout the State.

A bit about the work:

The threatened and endangered species monitoring program out of the Colorado State office began in 2004 with nine plant species Federally listed under the Endangered Species act, and four candidate species that primarily occur on BLM land. The monitoring program is unique in that for each species, the State Office has employed a demographic monitoring approach to develop a greater understanding of the landscape, and population-level dynamics of each species.

The monitoring of such species is important towards determining the status of imperiled species, at the population and range-wide level, and their potential future condition given different management actions, and environmental stochasticites. Additionally, this monitoring program is important in developing adequate and efficient recovery measures using the best available scientific information possible.

Week 1: Astragalus debequaeus

Astragalus is member of the bean family (Fabaceae). It is considered to be imperiled at the global and state level. A. debequaeus is known only from the Colorado River Valley in Delta, Garfield and Mesa Colorado.

Astragalus is the largest genus of plants in the world, with over 3,000 described species. Rarity and Endemism are common in Astragalus given that the species has a tendency to speciate by the means of edaphic specialization (colonizing a specific soil substrate often confined to a narrow geographic range).

Astragalus debequaeus is a prime example of edaphic specificity, known only from the Atwell Gulch member of the Wasatch formation. A. debequaeus also seems to really enjoy colonizing the steepest, rockiest slopes, making for fun and mildly dangerous sampling sites.

Overall, it was a good first week, with two new macroplot sites scouted, and sampled, and a few tumbles taken.

Week Two: Sclerocactus glaucus

Week two began with a trip back out to Western, Colorado to sample the Colorado Hookless Cactus: Sclerocactus glaucus. S. glaucus populations occur primarily on alluvial benches along the Colorado and Gunnison rivers and their various tributaries. Since 2007, Denver Botanic Gardens and BLM have established over ten monitoring plots to gain a deeper biological understanding of S. glaucus.

A grand majority of known occurrences of S. glaucus occur on BLM managed lands, while a number of other occurrences occur on private lands. Potential threats to this species include: oil and gas development, grazing, and ORV use. Other potential threats include: Climate change (specifically drought-induced effects), predation, and parasitism by the cactus-boarer beetle (Moneilema semipunctuatum).

Unlike A. debequaeus, from the S. glaucus sites we visited, I noticed a much different composition of habitat-types at each site location. One interesting thing we found at one of the sites we sampled was an interesting composition of crypto-biotic soil crusts (a living layer of lichen, moss, microfungi and cyanobacteria that colonize the top layer of soil in many desert landscapes).

Sclerocactus glaucus

For more on cryptobiotic soils: https://www.nps.gov/articles/seug-soil-crust.htm

Overall, it was a good second week with a few sites showing promise of new recruitment, and a few showing signs of potential decline. For the rest of the week, I will tend to the tasks of data entry, and the further examination of soil crust samples from Sclerocactus sites. For the weekend, I look forward to finishing up some things in my garden, mushroom hunting, and getting some more dirt on my bike.

Until next time,

Sam

I found out about the CLM Internship through my university’s email. I remember reading the email and thinking, “This sounds like exactly what I’m looking for right now.” I graduated with my bachelors a year ago, with a degree in Fisheries and Wildlife and a passion for conservation without a clear idea of where to go with that. This internship would give me the opportunity to work outside in a beautiful part of the country (all I cared about was moving west towards the mountains) and learn more about conservation projects in the federal government. I sent in my application minutes before I left for a rock climbing and camping trip in Red Rocks Conservation Area outside of Las Vegas. I remember standing in a Starbucks in the suburbs of Vegas with dirt on my face trying to connect to their WiFi to check if CLM had mailed me yet about the internship. The sound that came out of my mouth when I read that I was accepted was somewhere between a screech and a cheer, and I can imagine it gave the patrons in that Starbucks more of a jolt awake than whatever was in their cup. A few weeks later, I had been offered a position in Lander, Wyoming to collect native wildflower seeds for the Seeds of Success Program, and I was overjoyed to accept.

I’ve been in Lander for not even a week, and it has not disappointed so far. The people I work with are friendly and knowledgeable, the town has a great culture, and I have already learned so much about the region. I spent most of the week getting acquainted around the office and helping to digitalize the herbarium (essentially taking pictures of all of the pressed plant specimens). We even had the opportunity to travel to a BLM field office a couple hours away to assist with digitalizing the herbarium there as well. This was my first work-sanctioned road trip, and it went really well. The drive from Lander to Rock Springs was gorgeous (the drive back towards the mountains was even prettier), and though we had our work cut out for us, we were able to document over 2200 plant specimens collected from around the Rocky Mountain region to be added to the online database. The work itself was pretty monotonous; it consisted of numbering the plant specimens to keep them in order, shuffling the plants into the photo box one by one, and monitoring the pictures to make sure the camera picked up the details in the plants. However, the company I was with made the hours go by quickly and enjoyably. Larry, the librarian who was in charge of the herbarium project, was knowledgeable about the region and gave me great ideas about where to explore in my free time. He was also a rock climber, and he mentioned some hidden gems near Lander that I am so excited to check out. My coworker and I also get along great, which makes me feel so lucky because I know we will be spending a lot of time together this summer.

My coworker and I working with the herbarium specimens.

For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to live and work near the mountains. I didn’t have a clear idea of what exactly I wanted to be doing, which I think ended up working in my favor because I had an open mind about the opportunities that presented themselves. Though I never originally imagined myself working with plants, I think it’s a great fit. The work lets me spend time in beautiful places while helping contribute to an important cause, which I believe is the best of both worlds. I am so excited to learn more about rare plants found around Wyoming, the ecology of the different regions here, and the mechanics of conducting field work with the federal government. I think this summer will prove to be invaluable, and I am eternally grateful to the CBG for granting me this experience.

Views from the drive back to Lander

Danielle from the Bureau of Land Management, Lander field office

Hello CLM blog readers

“Oh wow” pretty much sums up my initial experiences on the Ottawa National Forest in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The office is involved with different projects in the forest, many of which require onsite inspections and a chance to explore the regional flora. The Ottawa is currently emerald ash bore free however, its arrival is imminent. The Eco team, under the assumption that the black-ash will disappear, is making plans to protect the black-ash swamp communities. The plan is to identify large, predominantly black-ash swamps, girdle some black-ash trees, and then reseed the area with suitable tree species in order to replace the black-ash stands while keeping the surrounding community intact.

Forest service worker sanding near a large Thuja occidentals.

Also, I participated with other projects including: species surveys, tree planting along a riparian corridor, installing an experimental barrier at a boat launch to prevent the spread of invasive species on boats, and working with students and community partners to manually control garlic mustard. Instead of going into detail on all these projects, I will provide a short montage of cool plants I have seen on the Ottawa.

COUNT IT: I made the front page of the local paper, it was below the fold but I think it still counts. The entire office was out taking care of our adopted highway. I probably would have gone with a different caption.

Micah Melczer

U.S. Forest Service, Ottawa Supervisors Office, Ironwood, MI

The first week of my internship was good. I took a class on how to do PFCs for the BLM rangeland health assessments. I also learned about what all I will be doing this summer. Seems like it will be a good one!

Shortnose and Lost River suckers are two species endemic to the upper Klamath basin.  They are relatively slow growing and long lived, with maturation times of 5 and 8 years and average lifespans of 12 to 20 years.  Historically there were hundreds of thousands of each species living in upper Klamath lake.  Their abundance and large size (max length of about 2 feet) made them a reliable and culturally important food source for the native American tribes.  Now, with a host of different factors negatively affecting their survival, both species are federally listed as endangered.

In 2016, in an effort to prevent both species from going extinct, the US Fish and Wildlife service partnered with Gone Fishing, a local business that specialized in rearing tropical aquarium fish, to start a propagation and rearing program for Lost River and shortnose suckers.  This partnership was ideal for several reasons.  First, there was an already existing facility with ponds and a geothermal water source that proved to be useful with controlling water temperatures over winter.  Second, the owner had decades of experience and expertise with rearing and propagating fish which has contributed a great deal to the success of the program.  Third, the partnership with a local small business helps the program gain support from the general public, where the economy is largely based on agriculture.  Efforts to protect endangered fish are not always welcomed if it means restricting water use for irrigation.

This effort is unique in that unlike the hatchery programs of the past, which supplemented the wild populations with fish hatched from a captive broodstock, this program captures wild larvae as it is drifting downstream.  This does not significantly impact the wild population because the adult suckers are spawning successfully.  The population bottleneck happens during the early juvenile stage in the first 1 or 2 years of life.  The larval fish are started off in glass aquaria for the first few weeks and fed a diet of brine shrimp.  The glass tanks are useful for monitoring the larval fish for disease.  After the fish outgrow the tanks they are transferred to .1 acre earthen ponds, built to try and mimic their natural environment.  They are raised in these ponds for 2 years, after which they are collected, weighed, measured, tagged, and released.

This spring, the first 2 weeks of April, the first cohort of larval fish captured were released back into the wild.  It will be several years before we know if these fish actually make it to reproduce, but the release was celebrated as a proof of concept, there was 99% survival to the release stage.  The program is now gaining a lot of attention and support, from congressional leaders to local farmers and other water users who view this as an opportunity to allow the downlisting of the species, leading to fewer water restrictions.  That could mean more funding and an expansion of the program, as well as higher stakes for delivering concrete results.  Let’s hope we can meet these high expectations.

Following the birds:

            I left New York nearly a year ago with my eyes set on the West Coast. My destination was the Cosumnes River Preserve (CRP) in Galt, CA. That opportunity was a CLM internship with the Bureau of Land Management. My experience was great. So great, in fact, that I decided to reapply to the program and see if any new/fun opportunities presented themselves.

During my last few semesters of college I began to dabble in fisheries courses. Prior to that, nearly all of my attention and study was focused on plants, because plants are awesome. What I soon found out, however, is that fish are pretty neat creatures too (and I find the fieldwork to be more fun). Some of my experiences at the CRP further reinforced this newfound notion and I began seriously looking into opportunities for fisheries experience.

Now, I am in Klamath Falls, Oregon working with the Fish and Wildlife Service with the main focus on working in their Sucker Assisted Rearing Program alongside another CLM intern. Before hearing about this opportunity, and unlike Galt (which I had never heard of prior to my internship there, although it now has a place in my heart), I had heard of Klamath Falls before. This is perhaps unsurprising for birders or anyone working or interested in the Pacific Flyway. As it turns out, the Klamath Basin is also popular among birds and their enthusiasts. I had, however, never really heard about anything more than that. I wrapped up with some volunteer work at the CRP just a Friday prior to my start here, and as I did so, I realized that like many of the birds that had called the Central Valley home for the winter, I too was soon to be migrating north along the flyway*.

*Whether or not this is a sign of some deep connection with the birds, I cannot say. Although, much like them, I am happy to be escaping the heat of Central Valley summers.

View of Mount Shasta and Part of Klamath Falls

Details of the position so far:

As part of the Endangered Species work here in Klamath Falls, there is an ongoing propagation effort to rear endangered suckers (Lost River and shortnose suckers) as supplements to the existing populations. These populations are battling many factors outlined quite well in the USFWS’s Revised Recovery Plan for both species. For the sake of keeping this post relatively concise (mostly, to save me having to write them all up for you), I am including a link to that plan.

USFWS Revised Recovery Plan (Lost River and shortnose suckers):

https://www.fws.gov/klamathfallsfwo/suckers/sucker_news/FinalRevLRS-SNSRecvPln/FINAL%20Revised%20LRS%20SNS%20Recovery%20Plan.pdf

Working in this program has already provided a good variety of tasks. On a day-to-day basis, the suckers require tending and some slight monitoring. This means things like checking water temperatures (adjusting if necessary), feeding, salting (when needed to help prevent disease and parasites), and checking for mortality or abnormal behavior (hopefully, unlikely). Being a relatively new project, with a moderate amount of troubleshooting and amending plans for efficacy and to resolve unpredicted errors, there is a fair amount of maintenance/construction required as well.

Once fish are big enough, they are released back to their normal stomping (swimming) grounds (waters). In our first week here, we were able to assist in the release of quite a few fish. This process involves netting fish out of their holding tanks, scanning them for PIT tags, transferring them to the release site, acclimating them to the water at the release site, and then ultimately releasing them. They are then free to face whatever the future has in store for them (hopefully not too much predation or too many harmful algal blooms). A pretty good description of this process can be found at the following link:

https://www.heraldandnews.com/news/local_news/boosting-sucker-survival/article_27e925da-64e0-5e13-b207-8ac0a1c1cf7d.html

When studying any animal it can be important to observe their movements. This can range from daily movements to more broad movements (i.e., migration). This helps folks to better understand when, where, and why a species of interest is utilizing an area. I leave plants out in this regard, because, as I assume we all know, most plant/plant-like things are not moving about in quite the way that animals do. Here at the office, this means that 200 of the reared suckers (~180+ mm in total length) are receiving radio tags.

Now, one doesn’t just put radio tags in fish all willy-nilly. Much like any surgery, there are some things to consider. How big do the fish need to be to receive the tag and be able to function/survive with it? Where will the tag be installed? How do you prevent them from tangling while they recover from surgery and await release? In order to address these questions proactively, staff here at the office organized a trial run to make sure their procedure would work effectively and efficiently. Lucky for us, we were able to sit-in on the operation (and assist with some small details) and it was quite an experience (add fish OR assistant to the resume?)

Our time here would feel unfulfilled if we did not get the opportunity to see some mature adults heading upstream to spawn, so we headed out for a couple of days with Bureau of Reclamation staff to do some monitoring and tagging of suckers at a place called Gerber Reservoir. Using trammel nets, we caught suckers (and some bycatch—perch, crappie, bass, and bullhead). The adult suckers were scanned for PIT tags, inspected for parasites/disease/or injury, measured, sexed, identified, and had a PIT tag inserted (if they were lacking one) before being returned to the water to go on their merry way. To summarize: We caught some big suckers*.

*While uncertain of the origins of this colloquialism, and the extent of its use in rural-American parlance—I like to believe it comes from a long-fought, line and tackle battle with a member of the Catostomidae. For instance, “Holy cow, that’s a big sucker!” Again, whether this is the case, I assuredly cannot say.

Looking forward to another great season.

Tyler Rose
CLM Intern
USFWS-KFFWO (Klamath Falls, OR)

*Any opinions expressed herein are my own.