So, my internship has ended, and it is time to reflect…

It was amazing! I was really impressed with what a valuable experience my internship turned out to be. I spent most of my summer conducting Mexican spotted owl habitat validation surveys. Myself, a fellow intern, and a BLM biological techncian ground-truthed about 30,000 acres worth of a GIS model that was used to predict all of the potential MSO habitat on the Arizona Strip. The great thing about this project was that it wasn’t just about hiking around staring at cliffs, we got to use our brains. I used GIS to glance at the areas we would be visiting, develop travel plans, and make maps to be used while we did our site visits. Driving out to these places was an experience in itself. Sometimes when I was bouncing down these roads like a hillbilly rock-crawler-in-training I thought to myself “Wow, I think I must have driven on some of the worst roads in the country at this point”. Then I would think about all of you fellow CLMers and wonder who REALLY drove the worst road in the country this summer. I bet it was one of us.

One of my favorite things about my internship was my mentor. Coolest lady ever, lots of amazing experience and really committed to helping my fellow intern and I achieve our career goals. I think one of the most valuable things this internship offers is the opportunity to work with someone who isn’t just a boss, but a real mentor. That’s exactly what recent college grads need. Someone to help give them ideas, tips, and a good word to future employers.

Now that I am in the process of interviewing for jobs again, I’m finding that the experiences I gained as a CLM intern have helped me feel confident when I tell people about my work experience, and also that employers are really excited to hear about what I have done. What an amazing feeling! The past five months have really served as jump-start for my career as a wildlife biologist, which is exactly what I hoped this internship would do for me.

It was a pleasure to have met all of you at the training workshop this summer, and to read about your adventures around the country. I wish all of my fellow interns the very best of luck in their careers. Remember, you guys are all awesome field biologists now, go out there and use what you’ve learned to make a difference!

My first few weeks on the job I didn’t know where I fit into my work environment and I wasn’t sure what was expected of me.  The feeling of being in limbo never left entirely (that’s part of being an intern), but as I learned more about my coworkers and non-native plant management in Alaska I discovered that most of the time I could direct myself on where my project should go next.  Having limited supervision was scary at times, but the experience of planning and carrying out projects mostly one my own is one of the most valuable pieces of knowledge I will take away from this internship.

At the end of my time in Alaska I have to comment on how many exciting opportunities I have participated in as part of this internship.    I’ve spent  surveying for non-native plants on a BLM property in Anchorage, helping collect native seeds, attending my first professional conference in Fairbanks, working with volunteers on several projects at the BLM office in Anchorage and even treating infestations of non-native plants!

One of my favorite experiences from the summer came on National Public Lands Day.  Before working with BLM I had never heard of this event, but I soon found out that at the Campbell Tract it is a big deal.  We had almost 150 volunteers in attendance and spent most of the week prior preparing.  On the day of the event (a Saturday) I and a BLM employee lead a group of volunteers on a re-vegetation project near the entrance gate to the facility.  We pulled weeds, spread topsoil, and sowed seeds over an area of about half an acre.  Many of the volunteers shared their enthusiasm for the event and make a tradition of volunteering at Campbell Tract every year on this day.  One gentleman has been attending for 15 years, since the very first National Public Lands Day at Campbell Tract!  Strangely, this gentleman also sustained the only injury during the volunteer work (a small cut on his ear).  As it was a minor injury during the closing ceremony with all of the volunteers one staff member gently teased that this  man had heard 15 years worth of safety talks at events like these and still managed to hurt himself.

There have been lovely moments (like serenading a moose with my trumpet) and not so lovely moments (spending several weeks entering data) as a CLM intern, but as a whole the experience comes as advertised.  I got the opportunity to work with a government agency, work outside in a new environment, and develop professional skills relating to my interests in conservation and botany.  Thanks for a great internship!

Carl Norlen

Anchorage Field Office

BLM, Alaska

Being selected to represent the CLM internship and my seed collection team back at Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden this past week at the 37th anual Natural Areas Conference in Osage Beach, Missouri was a unique and enriching opportunity for me to connect with professionals in the land management field. The conference brought me back to the Midwest in time to see fall colors still clinging to the trees in the Missouri oak woodlands. The conference was held on the scenic Lake of the Ozarks with opportunities to explore Missouri’s natural areas through various field trips. I went with a group of ecologists and land managers on a trip out to one of Missouri’s few remnant prairies where we learned about prairie chicken conservation, prairie management with fire and grazing, and seed collecting on the prairie. We went out with some botanists who showed me the wealth of grasses and forbs that were still in bloom late in the fall.

Talks and presentations at the conference covered a wide range of subject matter related to land management and conservation including invasive species, fire ecology, land restoration, and forest, prairie, cave, and wetland ecology. There was even a talk about the flora and invasive species of Jordan in the Middle East. During the conference, I connected with several professionals in the land management field throughout the Midwest including my home state of Michigan. Getting to see what types of ecological research are going on in the region has since motivated me to work hard towards gaining employment in the botanical field around Michigan or Wisconsin so I can return to the deciduous forests of my childhood.

Missouri was a phenomenal location for a conference based on natural areas, with a wide diversity of ecosystems to explore. The area was pleasant as well, with wholesome food and friendly people, a nice change from everyday life in the Los Angeles area. The people I met and experiences I had at this conference further convinced me that a career in the land management field would get me in contact with the type of people I could spend a lifetime working with towards the bold cause of preserving our nation’s natural areas. In closing, I would like to thank the CLM internship program for getting funding and sponsoring us interns to attend this conference, which was my first professional conference.

Drew Monks

Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden

Claremont, CA

As so many of my fellow interns have been reflecting on the end of their time with the CLM program, I am just finishing up my first month as a CLM intern in the Palm Springs, CA BLM office. September may seem like an unlikely time to start a field job, but in the Colorado Desert, where we still had temperatures topping out above 100° at the end of the month, fall is the beginning of our busy field season. Much of my duties as an intern will be focused on a 350 acre restoration project at Dos Palmas Preserve. Dos Palmas is a 14,000 acre Area of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC) made up of federal, state, and private lands. Dos Palmas is a unique area in that the striking desert landscape is peppered with native palm tree oases.

Dos Palmas Preserve in the Colorado Desert

The San Andreas fault runs directly beneath the preserve, and the underlying geology of the fault has resulted in a higher water table than can be found elsewhere in the desert. Unfortunately, this increased water availability has made the preserve vulnerable to invasions by an aggressive non-native shrub, tamarisk (Tamarix ramossisima). In areas where water is readily available, tamarisk soaks up massive amounts of it, leaving little for native vegetation. Conversely, tamarisk is also able to withstand periods of severe drought, allowing it to out-compete native plants when stressful situations occur. For the past 10 years, the BLM has been waging war on this invasive at Dos Palmas. Now, in areas where it has been successfully eradicated, our task is to restore the landscape to productive wildlife habitat.

One of my first projects was to plan for and oversee several volunteer planting days at Dos Palmas. The local Palm Springs School District had been approached by a European inventor who wanted to test his invention, a planting box designed to aid plant establishment in arid environments, in some of the world’s harshest desert locations. At 200 feet below sea level, with annual rainfall accumulation of less than 4 inches a year and temperatures that reach over 120° in the summer, Dos Palmas seemed like an ideal location to implement such a test. We agreed to host groups of high school students planting the so-called ‘Waterboxxes’ in some of our restoration areas.

Two students assemble a Waterboxx

The Waterboxx was recently nominated as one of Popular Science’s top 10 inventions of 2010; getting plants to grow in the dry heat of the desert is no easy feat, so we’re very excited and hopeful about trying it out! For more details on how the Waterboxx operates, see the company’s website at: www.groasis.com. In short, a box filled with water is placed around the area where seeds are planted, and each day a small amount of water is leaked out onto the planting site through a wick that comes out of the bottom of the box; this creates a moist microenvironment that allows the seeds to germinate and develop deep roots that can reach the groundwater table. The box is designed to prevent evaporation of the water inside of it, and to collect fresh water whenever a rain event occurs.

A Waterboxx with a mesquite seedling growing in it collecting rain water during a rare Dos Palmas shower!

We had a great time learning about the Waterboxx, participating in an international experiment, and teaching the high school students about Dos Palmas! The students did a great job, and we’re hoping to plant more Waterboxxes soon. Most of my prior work experience has almost exclusively involved conducting field work, so it was an exciting change for me to coordinate a volunteer project and to teach other people about conservation! We’ll be monitoring the growth of our seeds in the Waterboxxes over the coming months…more volunteer projects (and hopefully some Waterboxx success stories!) to come…

Students take an interpretive walk through the San Andreas Oasis

Teaching a group of students about the edible fruit and the desert adaptations of the California fan palm (Washingtonia filifera)

Katie Kain
Palm Springs, CA

I can’t believe it has been 8 months since I started this internship, so many experiences, events, and people I’ve encountered during my time here that it’s nothing short of astounding. I still remember on my first day in Nevada there was that terrible snow storm that just buried Reno, and now before I leave snow is once again on the mountain peaks. To be completely blunt I’m not really going to miss the weather of Nevada. That aside I’m most certainly going to miss my mentor Dean Tonnena and my fellow CLM interns who I have had the joy of working with these past few months but who I also have the honor of calling my friends. Starting with Dean he was a great mentor in that he always went out of his way to see that we had as many educational opportunities as we could. But also I learned a lot from Dean personally, for one thing I admire the fact that he is not reliant on technology like so many people I know, I mean he goes out and collects material so he can weave his own baskets and he grows his own fruits and vegetable. I have especially come to admire the fact that Dean has not once ever gotten angry or lost his nerves, he always has a calm demeanor, even when we would deal with locals who would be rude to us Dean would take no offense at all. And the interns I worked with, each of them were great. I like the fact that every one of us was different in terms of personality, work experience, education, and much more yet we were all collectively dedicated to our work in Nevada, and I can say everyone did a tremendous job at it. Also it was great to meet people my age who know who Dr. John is because none of my friends back in Oregon know who he is, so that was a plus. And what I’m especially going to miss is the Nevada landscape, it is just so beautiful watching the sun set over the hills, mountains, and prairies; there is just so much diversity here which I never realized when I first came here, and I feel that the land here has a wild, untamed quality about it and I’ve come to appreciate that.

I could go on for hours listing all the training I’ve had, all the amazing field excursions we’ve made, all the good times we’ve all had together so I’m just simply going to say this…I learned a lot, worked in many fields, had moments where things were stressful, scary, amazing, and absolutely exciting, and what I’ll take from this internship is a stronger work ethic, a new approach to life, and a eagerness to do my part in solving the environmental issues facing our planet.

My time here in WY is coming to a close, and it has been a busy season.  From marking fences, to GIS work, to helping the Seeds of Success crew, I feel I have accomplished a great deal this season.  My field partner and I spent the summer checking fences marked in a project started last season by another CBG Intern.  33,000 feet of fence was marked with vinyl J-channel markers, some with reflective tape, to increase visibility of the rangeland fences for wildlife to reduce mortalities because of fence collisions.  (As you may not be a contractor and have no idea what vinyl J-channel even is, please see picture below. ) 

The primary species of concern in our project is the Greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus), although it is our hope that big game species such as pronhorn antelope, mule deer, and elk will be positively affected as well.  Interestingly enough, I have only seen living sage-grouse a number of times this season, only twice during work in the field.  I have seen more than anyone’s fair share of bones.  As unfortunate as it was to witness so many mortalities, especially with this species of great conservation concern, it was fascinating at the same time.  Until now, I have not had the opportunity to learn so much about the bone structure and physiology of a specific species of bird.   Did I think I would be a psuedo-archealogist and learning so much in-depth information about bones this season?  Not really.  But it has been a fun experience learning about a bird in a particular way I had not yet imagined.

My internship with CBG has been a great introduction to the BLM.  I value the time spent here with this agency and the people in this district office.  I have enjoyed learning so much about such a wonderful species as well as better understanding how much I already know.  I never thought 4wd skills would be so helpful…

It’s amusing now to reflect on the day I crossed the Oregon border for the first time. Dougherty slide is one of the first landmarks one passes when driving into Oregon from Nevada. In addition to serving motorists as part of a highway, it serves hang-gliders as a drop point – steep is an understatement. Prior to reaching the slide, we spent hours on the straight, flat highways of Nevada’s desert. After this monotony, the signs warning travelers of the slide’s impending sharp downgrade seemed implausible. Suddenly, however, we drove out of a curve and Highway 140 appeared to drop away before us.  From the summit the landscape plummets off the highway’s shoulder, impressively displaying the Lakeview Bureau of Land Management District.  At the time, however, the land I surveyed through my windshield appeared anything but familiar. The high mountains, the lack of trees, and the expansive brownness of dry ground looked nothing like the mid-west and also nothing my preconceived notions of Oregon. On this day in June, I followed 140 in to Lakeview for the first of many times. In the following months, Molly (the other CBG intern) and I drove this road to and from our work sites almost every day.  Over time its scenery, its sharps curves and its steepness over the two highest passes in Oregon became quite common place. Fittingly, in less than a week, I will drive this road one last time — back up Dougherty slide and home. As I reflect on my time in Oregon, I am most amazed at how quickly the alien ecosystems and experiences of my first few weeks here became familiar and comfortable – how I began to call this new place home.

In addition to the unfamiliarity of the landscape the people who I met on arrival in Lakeview seemed quite unfamiliar.  During my first few days, I met character after character. Later in the summer Molly and I joked that the host of transient summer seasonals, quirky supervisors, eccentric town’s people and the “boys’-club” of post-adolescent fire fighters (stereotyped of course) we met here might make for entertaining reality television. Over the summer, my home, the government trailers at the Lakeview Interagency Fire Center, formed a center for a nebulous community of non-locals. In keeping with the reality TV metaphor, the trailers functioned as a “Real World-esque” pad where strangers arrived, lived, and worked before leaving again — forging relationships that produced both drama and merriment along the way. On the day I arrived, two Hawaiian fire-fighters greeted me to let me in. Prior to that day, I’d never actually met anyone from Hawaii and my two new roommates made quite the pair. One stood tall and skinny while the other cut a more compact figure –earning him the nickname “muscle hamster” later in the summer.  The two maintained a constant, endearing banter and left our trailer noticeably quieter when they ultimately left. A few minutes later, a car pulled up and I met my roommate and crewmate, Molly. In some respects, Molly and I are opposites. She, for example, is quite quiet (especially with new people) and I, for example, am quite not. During the first few weeks, I mistook her silence for anger before learning otherwise. Building and maintaining a positive and effective working relationship with Molly may prove my most important personal growth experience of the internship. I have never spent so much continuous time with one person in my entire life and probably never will again.

For five months, Molly and I spent nearly twenty-four hours a day together – sharing a trailer camping, cooking, traveling and even grocery shopping together. This summer demonstrated that spending so much time with one person necessitates personal growth in order to remain friends at the end of the day. If communication felt strained to me at the beginning, over the course of the summer we tailored our phrasing to better understand each other. Furthermore, we learned to work through problems together – pitting ideas off each other and compromising to arrive at effective solutions. By the end, development of our non-verbal communication skills meant that we could even perform tasks without speaking at times. Our partnership forced both of us to evaluate the ways that we spoke or didn’t speak to each other so that we could work more efficiently and effectively as a team. While we learned to speak up to keep unhappiness from brewing and boiling, we also learned to let smaller grievances go – valuing the continuation of our positive working relationship over proving a point or “winning” an argument. We gained new respect for personal space  – even when we had to find this space in silence at times. Over all, I feel lucky to have found a close friend in a person who I might not have befriended or ever chanced to meet otherwise. I feel a marked absence in our trailer and at work since Molly left Lakeview for home a week ago. After spending so much time working as a team it feels weird to work alone.

On Molly's last day we got to explore the Lost Forest in search of seeds. This amazing pine forest exists with very little water in the middle of the desert -- forty miles from the next forest.

In addition to solid communication skills, Molly and I made an effective team because that our skills complemented each other. While I have experience camping and hiking, Molly holds a wealth of knowledge about Botany. By contrast, despite taking a number of biology and ecology classes as an undergraduate, my transcript exposes the noticeable absence of a botany class. Before I started my internship, for example, buying a plant guide to the Pacific Northwest never even crossed my mind and this foresight betrayed my inexperience. More importantly, without taking botany, I lacked a taxonomic basis to help identify the plants that I saw or to mentally categorize these plants when I learned their names. On my first day of work I felt over-whelmed by the sheer number of plants I needed to learn and to learn quickly. Thanks to the patience of Molly and my mentor Brennan Hauk, however, I picked up this knowledge on the job and gained a whole new skill set to take home. After only a few weeks, I could identify most of the plants I passed as I collected seed. By the time my mom visited towards the end of the summer, I felt a great sense of accomplishment as I told her not only the common names but also the scientific names of nearly all of the plants we saw.  Although a different flora covers Iowa’s prairies, I am excited to apply my new understanding of plant families to those plants communities. I also feel confident extending my botanical experience to future conservation jobs.

First snowfall time to go home.

Over all, I feel really grateful for the opportunity presented by this internship. I learned a tremendous amount about plants and disturbance ecology – invaluable knowledge as I pursue a career in conservation and land management. Moreover, as our mentor gave us progressively more freedom to plan our own schedules over the course of the summer, he pushed us to act confidently and independently in the work place – to grow capable of navigating the adult world alone (with support) and to grow up.  I improved my communication skills and made friendships as I dealt with not only Molly but everyone in the BLM office and in the greater Lakeview community. Finally, I had an awesome summer in a beautiful place that I probably never would have even visited if not for this internship. Thank you to the Lakeview BLM and CBG for everything.

Amy Hadow

BLM

Lakeview, OR

It is sad to think that my time in WY is coming to an end. I have had an amazing and memorable time here in Pinedale. When I first learn that I would be placed in Pinedale I was slightly concerned. All I was told was I would be living in an extremely small town in the middle of nowhere, but only after a short amount of time I fell in love with the place. In Pinedale I am surrounded by mountains, tons of outdoor activities, and some the nicest people I have ever been around. 

I have enjoyed working with the BLM and getting to know the inner workings of a government agency. I have learned a fair amount during my 5 months here doing SOS and weed monitoring. I was very fortunate to work with fantastic people during my time here. The last few weeks I have been able to work with the wildlife crew doing pigmy rabbit surveys, giving me a chance to get new experiences.  Here are a few pictures of what I have seen and done. 

Participating in a local activity, antelope hunting

RANUNCULACEAE DELPHINIUM BICOLOR

Indian paint brush

Transect on an oil field

Wind River Mountains

Canyon Lands, Devil's Arch

Fly fishing in WY

Hiking at cirque the towers.

It was mid-September. Six weeks left of our internship. Deadlines were set, stress was high. Then our mentors walked into our cubicle, wondering if they could ask us some personal questions. Nervously, Brittany and I listened, preparing ourselves for trouble. Our worrying turned out to be unnecessary – we were getting an extension to our internship!

So here we are, extended until February. We now have time to do all that needs to be done, experience a Colorado winter, and afford to visit our respective family and friends over the holidays.

Backtracking…

The bridge from August to September turned out to be the highlight of my year thus far. Brittany and I were sent to the 17th International Conference on Aquatic Invasive Species in San Diego. As newcomers to the scientific conference circuit, we marveled in every detail, every speaker, every experience. We were housed in the posh downtown Westin San Diego, mere blocks from San Diego Harbor, Little Italy, and the Gaslamp District. Our poster presentation was the first night of the conference – and boy were we nervous. It was one of the most nerve racking experiences of my life to date; representing THE National Park Service in a room full of respected biologists and invasive species experts. We came through it alive, thanks to our month of preparation, our mentor Rita’s presence and confidence in us, and the laid-back atmosphere of the room.

Once our poster presentations were over, we were able to breathe a sigh of relief and enjoy our fellow presenters. We became versed in a whole slew of the latest and hottest invasive species topics, including Asian Carp, dreissenids, ballast water policies, molecular techniques, aquatic plants, and crustaceans.  It was such a pleasure to be immersed in the world of biology once again, learning from the best in the business. Although the topic of invasive species is a depressing and sometimes a helpless one, the confluence of passionate people from across the globe to help in this problem was extremely hopeful, and personally inspiring.

By conference’s end, Brittany and I had formed friendships and made connections from San Francisco to Belgium, from Romania to Australia, and everywhere in between.  One of the conference go-ers organized a pelagic whale watching trip, and we obviously jumped at the opportunity. Many a seabird was spotted, as well as sea lions and seals and even a few whale spouts! It was such a thrilling experience, and made me yearn for my future career in marine biology to begin ASAP.

The rest of our time in San Diego was spent with friends in La Jolla. We spent most afternoons playing at Scripps Beach, where I gazed longingly at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography campus. I went surfing for the first time, taken so kindly by Tom Rottler, former T.A. for my father in Minnesota and current Director of Outdoor Recreation for UC San Diego. We were shown the great, local eateries. I tried my first sushi. I saw a real life lionfish at the Birch Aquarium at Scripps, and we got to be tourists at the San Diego Zoo.  Long story short, I fell in love with California (big surprise, right?)

But the time came to drag our spoiled behinds back to the mountains and back to work and the real world. It took a few days for me to stop moping around, longing for the sound of the ocean and the Southern California sun on my face. The minute I got back, I began researching graduate schools (Scripps included!), marine internship opportunities, and signed up to take the GRE (wish me luck!)

Once back in the office, it was time to get down to business. With the additional three months, we could all breathe a bit easier while still working hard. Our current progress finds us with a total of 583 marine invasive species (a plastic number), and beginning to collaborate with the webpage developers in the office. Our first goal is to have the internal website (available and tailored for Department of the Interior staff), then using our extension to create an external website for the public. It has been a lot of hard, not always exciting, but rewarding, work. Things are finally coming to fruition and we are this close to an actual final product.

Keep an eye out for that Marine Invasive Species website!

   

   

         

10/17/10

My CLM internship is coming to an end and I am very grateful for having had this opportunity. I have gained more field experience and have had a glimpse into the world of government work. I have a better understanding of GIS through ESRI’s online training. I have developed botany skills that I previously did not possess thanks to the mentorship of Carol Dawson and Peter Gordon and to our daily outdoor adventures. I now possess a knowledge of and an appreciation for Colorado’s native flora. I had an excellent summer hiking through the foothills, mountains, and valleys of Colorado with my fellow interns. I appreciated the interest in our work that recreational hikers expressed and it was always fun to hear peoples’ reactions when I told them that I basically go on hikes looking for wildflowers for work.
To those considering applying for the CLM internship I think it is a great way to spend a summer and to gain field experience in the natural sciences. For me, pictures can be more persuasive than words, so I made this collage to speak louder about this internship.