In the past couple weeks, my field offices’ SOS collection season has come to a bittersweet close. With the drought in CA still in full swing, it was difficult to meet our target, as water-stressed plants in our area consistently showed a lack of viable seeds.

A collection of redbud (Cercis orbiculata) in Bear Valley was our final collection. The fruits we were finding generally had one or two seeds, where those of a healthy tree would’ve had four to six. Although we had to sweat to meet our target of 10,000 seeds, my mentor Graciela and I couldn’t complain too much – the occasional cool breeze and the view out towards Yosemite made the day.

groovy lichen

just gorgeous!

pronghorns!

Wetland plants in the burn

Another handsome guy

collection buddy

the dread plant yellow starthistle

Keeper of the sheep

Update # 1: The Northwest is on fire, as many of you know. The Canyon Creek fire just east of our district began over a month ago caused by a lightning strike, has claimed over 40 homes and gobbled up over 110,000 acres. It got real to me when the smoke of a fire to the north hazed up town each evening when the wind shifted. The day I could finally see the Cascade mountains again was incredible. Firefighters died tragically battling the Okanogan Fires in WA, and it will be a struggle to protect an ancient grove of giant sequoia’s from crowning to the south in California. The USFS has spent over half of it’s operating budget this year just on firefighting attempts. In the ring of fire, volcanic mountain chain, we are surrounded by a non vulcan type of blaze. Locally it is looking like it will wind down, but it sure has opened my eyes to the issues with fire that the west has to look forward to in the years to come. With climate change (causing drought) , the takeover of invasive annual grasses and past fire suppression, it’s the perfect storm. The seeds we are collecting are so important! Not just for sage grouse or pollinators, but for entire landscapes. We are the post-firefighters. It will be the West’s great challenge to thrive in this fiery environment.
Interesting sidenote if working in burned areas or fire ecology enthusiast: Have you noticed the plant community in past burned areas? I kept going to burned areas and vaguely puzzling over the plants I saw there, but didn’t give it much thought. Then I heard about this study that shows that after a burn the trees that died are tapping water out of the earth no more, and this actually causes the water table to rise. This makes water near the surface more accessable to plant life then previously, and you get a early successsion of wetland plants. Weird, but good good to know the fires might not be all bad.
Update # 2 : Assisting the weed technicians with invasive species mapping on our GPS’s, one of our most startling discoveries was an infestation of yellow starthistle, Centaurea solstitialis. This weed was only known to be present in a few places on the district and is of high concern, so recording it is important so that plans to control it over the next few years can be made before it spreads. Yellow starthistle can rapidly decrease water availability to desirable native plants and thus result in large economic and environmental costs. It is also toxic to horses. Myself and the weeds gals spent two whole days manually pulling this prickly weed to aid in its eradication.
Update # 3 : I will never tire of seeing pronghorn antelope, I’m sure of it. These are some seriously cool animals. Did you know scientists think that their incredible speed is due to co-evolution with the now extinct N. American cheetah? I just think they are beautiful, and their cute white butts make them easy to spot.
Update # 4 : I have had the pleasure of tagging along with the wildlife CLMer’s to record western long-eared bat roost site data. I think that working with other people in other areas of focus in your office is one of the most important things you can do as an intern. I would echo this for land managers in general. We need to work together within our offices, our agencies, our communities, and the world. Anyway, I got to use forestry equipment that I haven’t used since a breif lab session in school so I was grateful for some real-world experience. I also learned something new about the western juniper.
How do you determine it’s an old growth juniper? Well overall it just looks old. Better indicative factors however, include: copius growth of macrolichens on branches, no leader creating pointy-topped silloheute, instead rounded. Deeply grooved and twisted bark (lots of bat roost sites) and many (often dead) sprawling lower branches. two or three of these characteristics and you got an old growther. They are supremely beautiful.
Update # 5 : Fun fact, listening to NPR is a good thing to do when you have to drive a lot, alone, as I do. You learn about new science discoveries, local happenings, cultural phenomena, history, geography, and become a more informed world citizen.Your IQ may even rise. Also, I have found that NPR is often detectable when other good music stations are not. Try it out in the field.
Last update (# 6) Fun botany vocab of the month, as taught by using wordy and confusing dichotomous keys: Cordillera: mountain range chain. Secund: inflorecences situated on only one side of the stem. Glaucous: powdery stuff that makes plants look misted. Blue-white until rubbed with finger, then green. I love that botany has a special word for that.

It was long, but my blog is overdue and I had many random thoughts to share. Until next time!

We have been busy busy interns at the BLM Eagle Lake office. We have been monitoring several species of special status plants in addition to our Seeds of Success collections.

Saving the world, one SOS collection at a time

Although  grass collections such as Squirrel Tail and Great Basin Wild Rye go much faster, I have a soft spot for berry picking.

My beloved Bitter Cherry

Although I do enjoy the work itself, my favorite part of this internship is spending everyday out in the beautiful field office. It is amazing how one day we can see for miles, and the next day be surrounded by thick smoke from the surrounding wildfires.

Cheers to lunch with a view!

Of course the job does have its down sides…

You think LA traffic is bad? Try the Eagle Lake field office! We have been caught in numerous traffic jams.

We certainly enjoy our weekend adventures, both local and afar.

I recently visited McArthur-Burney Falls Memorial State Park for a full day of hiking. The Pacific Crest Trail passes through the park, and I was lucky to meet some thru-hikers who have been going strong for 1,418 miles so far. I’ve been inspired to attempt the trail myself someday!

The beautiful Burney Falls

Other adventures include Yosemite National Park, Lassen National Park, and Lake Tahoe. I certainly do not like wasting a single weekend in such an awesome part of the country!

Cheers,

Rachael

Hello everyone!

August was a pretty exciting month! I was able to pair up with the local DNR office and assist in some of their prairie dog projects. Part of the week, I participated in the capture and relocation program. Since the Utah prairie dog is federally listed as a threatened species, how “problem” populations are handled is a delicate process. The DNR has been trying to work with property owners who find the animals troublesome or undesirable and relocate them, so that more drastic measures by the land owners can be avoided.  This process allows the animals to form a new colony at the relocation site, where they can thrive, and relieves some of the tensions that human-prairie dog interactions can cause.

I was also able to participate in a slyvatic plague research study. This allowed me to get a little bit more hands on experience with the prairie dogs. Essentially, we set traps in a location where the SPV (sylvatic plague vaccine) was distributed a week earlier (using sugar cube baits) and collected data from the individuals that were captured. Once caught, there are several steps to processing them, a few examples are: checking for fleas (which can carry the plague), collecting a fur sample (which will contain a biomarker for the vaccine if it’s been ingested), and marking them with pit and ear tags (in order to identify them in future years). For a little bit of information about Sylvatic plague and the work being done to immunize populations of ferrets and prairie dogs, read this brief article by the USGS.

A colony of Utah prairie dogs near our SPV site.

Although the prairie dog work was the highlight of the month (maybe even the internship), I have been keeping busy helping the range technicians finish up some of their trends, check riparian fencing, fix said fencing if needed, visit future prairie dog relocation sites and collect vegetation data, and participate in PFC (proper functioning condition) assessments of a few riparian areas. Next week we’re going to start helping with the rangeland health assessments.

During one of our riparian PFC assessments we came upon a stand of ponderosa pines. This was my first up close encounter with this wonderful tree. If you sniff the bark it smells kind of like cream soda or caramel. It’s pretty wonderful, and I highly recommend it!

This is my co-intern Zach and I with Mike and Lindsey from the range crew.

In my free time, I’ve gotten to explore a bit and see more of Utah and the National Parks (NP). I think in this month alone, I’ve visited Kolob Canyon, Zion NP, Capitol Reef NP, Bryce Canyon NP, and the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest. Being a midwesterner, I’m really trying to make the most of my time in the southwest!

Looking out at Capitol Reef National Park from the trail. It was quite a view!

I’ll leave you with this gem. Burrowing owls are often found in close proximity to prairie dogs, because the owls will utilize old mammal burrows for nesting sites. I’ve been dying to see a burrowing owl all summer, and as a result of this behavior and my work with the DNR crew, I was able to visit a spot and see an entire family of owls. It was a pretty amazing sighting! I believe there were 5 present during my visit.

One of the burrowing owls.

This past month has seen a variety of efforts here at the office, field season is still in full swing and we have been busy! We have been trapping fish in Tule Lake just across the border from California. We have had a little bit of success, but we were largely catching small fish and have not found suckers in the lake. We moved our traps to the deepest part of the lake, which was more successful. We managed to catch larger fish, mostly chub species. We also caught the largest sucker we have caught all season, most likely a short nosed sucker. Unfortunately we are having problems with our boat, so we may be unable to set traps for the rest of the season.

Short nose Sucker caught in Tule Lake

We have also been trapping at the Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge. We have caught three suckers so far in the largest pond, the only pond where we are supposed to have fish. We were able to get a pit tag ID on the last two suckers. They were placed in the pond last year and have doubled in size over the winter. This is really good data to have because it suggests that we can take salvage fish to be reared to a more hearty size in a relatively quick manner.

Sucker of unknown species caught at Lower Klamath National Wildlife National Refuge

This past week the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) needed help conducting sampling at the Fish Evaluation Station (FES). FES is a way of estimating how many fish, with an emphasis on suckers, get entrained in irrigation canals throughout the season. In the past the BOR has sampled for 24 hours, they found that fish rates were higher at night, so they began sampling from 8pm to 2am for intervals in 30 minutes, pulling the trap net every half hour on the hour. Suckers are measured and weighed and evaluated for physical abnormalities. The number of other species caught is also estimated.

This year we wanted to figure out if 1) the fish we are catching are all unique individuals or if the same individuals are getting recycled 2) if we can keep suckers and rear them to a more hearty size and then rerelease them. To figure out if the same fish were getting captured in the trap net we VIE tagged sculpin and chub. These species were chosen because they are showing up in a manageable number; the sculpin was also chosen because its life history is similar to the suckers. We conducted the experiment through August, when we stopped because of low fish numbers. We are still analyzing the data from this experiment, but we think it will give us really valuable data that will help us better determine the number of fish that are being entrained in the irrigation canals each year.

We also held half the suckers from each pull to help determine if we can rear suckers caught in the FES trapping effort. We held suckers in tanks for the week and took the survivors to net pens in Upper Klamath Lake. We were unsure how well this experiment would work because the suckers coming through were believed to already be in bad health. While the data is still being analyzed from observation, it appears that as the sampling went on we were able to hold less suckers because less were coming through the traps. However, it looks like a greater percentage survived. It will be interesting to see if this holds to be true after the data is analyzed statistically. We conducted this experiment through August as well and stopped because of low sucker capture.

This past week I helped BOR conduct the sampling because they were short staffed. While we did not continue the recirculation study, we did try and hold suckers. However there was a low fish catch which included suckers. We caught just seven suckers all week and were only able to hold one. We are unsure why the fish capture is so low this year, though there are several theories including bad water quality and that it was a low spawning year.

Trap net at the Fish Evaluation Station

Sucker holding tanks at Fish Evaluation Station

My internship is wrapping up, as I have about a month left. That means that it is final report time! I am analyzing the data for the monitoring at the Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge. I am really excited to see what the data can tell me. I am especially excited to do some analysis with Geographic Information Systems. I have a lot of GPS points for predator evidence and I am interested to see if it there is a pattern to where predator activity is occurring. I am also getting to write a field note for the project, which will be a great chance to work on public outreach. The last month should be busy but rewarding.

As I mentioned in my last blog post, Olga Kildisheva ─the grad student who collected with me on two separate trips for seed dormancy trials she is working on, recommended I do a food blog. I think she really enjoyed eating the smoked salmon I brought from Portland. Field work can be very demanding physically and involve long hours, often in rather harsh conditions such as high winds and hot temperatures. I find having good food that I enjoy eating more satisfying and it can inspire happy snack songs, smiles, positive thinking, and a good mood no matter how exhausted I may be.

Smoked salmon, cream cheese and cucumber. Yum!

When I head to the field I bring one cooler and one other bin for food. There’s never as much room in the cooler as I wish there was, limiting perishable food selections to the most cherished. I compensate by bringing along plenty of fresh fruits.

Cold melon after a long, hot day in the field is one of my most cherished perishable foods. If I could only fit two things in my cooler they would be melon and smoked salmon.

Instant oatmeal. Pictured is my favorite combo: peaches, chopped almonds, and ghee. I also like to add jam, sliced banana, or trail mix.

After spending 60 days in a tent this field season I have decided ghee and avocado are two versatile foods I will forever take with me when camping. Ghee is a most delicious clarified butter which originated in ancient India. Because it’s clarified, there are no milk solids to go rancid in the heat, it comes in a jar, and it doesn’t leak or spill like olive oil does. Plus it even tastes good in oatmeal. Avocados: put ’em on everything! They are good for breakfast (scrambled eggs), lunch (sandwiches), and dinner (chili and soup). Plus, when you buy them by the bag they tend to be cheaper so you kind of have to put them on everything.

Avocado on everything! Cream cheese is also a staple in my cooler. It is good on chili (pictured above), in scrambled eggs, essential for smoked salmon crackers, and it makes mac n cheese tastier when using water instead of milk.

PB&J, the old time favorite. I switch it up by bringing sunflower seed butter (cheaper than other nut butters and so delicious) instead of peanut butter once in a while.

I leave for the field on Monday for what may be my last trip. While I am looking forward to spending more time sleeping in a warm and comfortable bed, I will miss all the time I’ve spent outside becoming a better field botanist. Beyond learning how to pack efficiently and deliciously, I have gained plant identification skills, learned the names of quite a few birds, networked with professional botanists, overcome fears associated with camping (alone), and realized wind is my least favorite weather.

So long for now. And don’t worry, my next blog post will have plenty of plant and landscape pictures, but first it’s time for a snack!

-Lindsey in Portland & Harney County, Oregon

This week, the range techs and I worked with Jeff Mosley at MSU Extension conducting Daubenmire surveys in greater sage-grouse habitat. The study focused on plant species composition and insect populations (via pitfall traps and vacuuming) around pellet sites in a known summer ground. Over the course of three years, the project will compare grouse frequencies and food sources available at ungrazed and grazed sites. Jeff thinks that grazing and sage-grouse conservation are compatible, but wants to support this with further data. The team was great to work with and we quickly completed the transects with time to spare.

Horse Prairie. Can you spot the sage-grouse?

Prior to helping Dr. Mosely, I did a little research on grouse. I’ve spent the summer working at the BLM, who prioritizes the protection of grouse and its habitat over, well, most things. Many times I heard the phrase “sage-grouse preferred” used as justification for management decisions, including which species I chose to focus on for seed collections. Still, it was not clear to me why this species in particular warranted such attention.

The internet is a vast place. A quick google search of “greater sage-grouse” will yield a slew of articles and agency pages. Recently, the USDA released a plan to invest $211 million in sage grouse conservation over the next three years. With the goal of habitat conservation, a large portion of the money will go towards conservation easements, conifer removal, reducing wildfire and invasive grass threat, and protecting habitat from human disturbance and development, according to the USDA website.

Responses to this plan have been mixed, as one would expect. I am especially fond of reading the comments on articles and those on the Fox write-up delivered. Most commenters were outraged that such an enormous sum would be spent on birds, while others shared their land-grab theories, connected it to abortion legislation, and even left a recipe using sage-grouse. Emotions ran high due to the large amount of money involved.

The Pew Charitable Trust has an informative article that summarizes the decline of sage-grouse and its importance as an indicator species. There are ample articles circulating the web weighing in on the validity of listing grouse under the Endangered Species Act. The upcoming decision will have huge implications for the BLM because it manages about half of grouse habitat. Even if they are listed, however, they may still go extinct, as restoration attempts thus far have been mostly unsuccessful.

Dr. Mosely’s work is important to support evidence-based management decisions concerning greater sage grouse outside of special interest groups. Hopefully this type of information can be applied to policy in the context of what the overall end goal is: are we trying to bolster these populations back into the millions or merely delay their extinction? Is the first option even feasible?

Some relevant articles:

The USDA press release on the conservation strategy (Aug. 27, 2015) http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usda/usdahome?contentid=2015/08/0238.xml&contentidonly=true

“Feds plan to spend more than $200M to help protect sage grouse” FoxNews.com (Aug. 28,2015) *check out the comments section*  http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/08/28/feds-plan-to-spend-more-than-200m-to-help-protect-sage-grouse/

“Press Release: Sage-Grouse report Points to Need for Balanced Land Management”  The Pew Charitable Trusts (April 24, 2015) http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/about/news-room/press-releases/2015/04/24/pew-sage-grouse-report-points-to-need-for-balanced-land-management

“Can Sage-Grouse Be Saved Without Shutting Down the West?”  Isabelle Groc, National Geographic (May 19, 2015) http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/05/150519-sage-grouse-endangered-species-west-washington-environment/

Late summer is a great time to find oneself collecting along a pond edge.

The fruit of Swida amomum develop a lovely blue color when ripe.

In the past couple of years I have undergone a major migration, moving from Hawaii to the eastern seaboard and then up to New England. There are the obvious differences between the two places, such as weather and the amount of palms. One of the largest contrasts that I’ve felt is in the pace of every day life. Hawaii is known for its laid back and welcoming attitudes, while New England has a reputation for being focused and productive to the point of being a bit frenzied.

These traits persist in other aspects of life such as the rapid change of seasons found in the North East. As our team works closely with the plants in this area, it is easy to imagine how the swift passage of time (in this case the fruiting times of plants) motivates people to act with alacrity, knowing that it common to have things come and go very quickly.

In Hawaii the seasons (yes, there are seasons) are gentle and seem to linger a lot longer, whereas any missed opportunities in collecting plants north east means it will be another year before you can get another chance. As we move into crunch time with many different types of plants producing seeds we are feeling the pressure, trying to not to let any species slip past our notice.

One of the species that made this very clear was the Silky Dogwood (Swida amomum), this shrub is very common along wet edges and we have seen it frequently. It is a robust plant that has been requested for several dam removal projects. In the past three trips, the fruit ripened into a beautiful blue color and we started to collect gallon bags full of seeds. With the passing of each week the seeds seemed harder to find in large quantities, and I’m expecting that last week was our final collection of this species for the season.

It is possible we will find other populations that are fruiting a bit later than others and perhaps we will see more as we travel to states further south, but it is likely this species is done fruiting in our area.

Swida amomum, it was a pleasure working with you this year and I look forward to doing it again in 2016!

Although Eastern Oregon is beautiful, there are 3 things I desperately miss about the Midwest: 1) water, 2) trees, and 3) smoke-free air. These are things I took for granted until I moved here – to a place where I have to drive an hour to get to a lake, where there are no trees to provide shade or a private place to pee while doing fieldwork, and where the air can be so thick with smoke it looks like fog.

One of Eastern Oregon’s treasures: the Steens.

Luckily, we’ve gotten to do quite a bit of riparian work over the past month – which means we got to be around water! Mostly just sad, tiny streams, but water nonetheless. Our first foray into the riparian world was the stream restoration I alluded to at the end of my last blog post. We built stone walls and pools to help prevent further erosion of the head cuts and to preserve the wide, moist riparian areas along the stream bank. It was exhausting and dirty work, but it was rewarding to see all of the reinforced head cuts and eroded banks.

Rock pools built to slow flow & prevent erosion.

In the middle of August, I drove to Bend for the weekend to take the GRE (not a fun time). Afterwards, I met up with a friend at the Newberry National Volcanic Monument, so I got to enjoy two lakes and plenty of shady trees for the weekend.

Paulina Lake, East Lake & the big obsidian flow.

Next, we got to learn how to do Multiple Indicator Monitoring (MIM) of stream channels and streamside vegetation. This involves looking at the size of the substrate, the width of the stream, the height and age classes of trees, the alteration of the stream banks, and the composition of the greenline. It’s a tedious process, but I’m very interested in wetlands/riparian zones, so I loved getting experience in that area. The only bad part was that it was incredibly smoky due to the hundreds of thousands of acres of surrounding wildfires – it was like being caught in the smoke at a bonfire but not being able to escape. At the end of each day my throat and eyes burned (no pun intended).

Smoke, smoke everywhere.

Thankfully, I was able to get some relief from the oppressive smoke with a few more weekend trips – I flew back to Iowa to visit my boyfriend, and I drove to Seattle with my co-interns, stopping along the way to camp in the Mt. Hood National Forest.

Mt. Hood National Forest (this is fog, not smoke).

A sunny day in the amazing city of Seattle.

This past week we’ve been monitoring photo points along streams. These are sites that have been photographed somewhat regularly since the 1970’s to see how the stream/vegetation has evolved over time. It was interesting to see how much change can happen in just 5 years, whether it be due to drought, grazing, or fire. Moreover, I’m excited we’ve gotten to do so much riparian work because I think the techniques will be directly applicable to the research I hope to do in grad school.

I can’t believe there are only 6 weeks left of my internship – time flies in the high desert!

Until next time,

Austin Yantes

Burns District BLM