Headed Home

An early pic of an aster with the camera strap showing!

An early pic of an aster with the camera strap showing!

A later picture of a pea-family plant, note there is no strap in the picture!

A later picture of a pea-family plant, note there is no strap in the picture!

This week I’m actually leaving my internship in Rawlins WY and heading home to Natick Massachusetts.  I’m excited to go home and see trees and fall colors, but I’m going to miss the open spaces and the glut of wildflowers (in the spring/early summer).  I spent a lot of time taking pictures of flowers, and I think I got better as the summer went on.  At first, I kept taking pictures with my finger over the lens or the camera strap in the shot, but I improved.

It’s a good thing that I got better at taking pictures because I saw some awesome plants. Here is a picture of me with Penstemon haydenii which is an endangered species and in Wyoming it’s only found in this one locality. We spent the day trudging back and forth across the sand dunes counting each plant. It was tiring, but well worth it to see and monitor such a pretty and interesting plant.
Penstemon Plantaginaceae and Me

I’m going to miss seeing all these wildflowers, but I won’t miss riding around in a truck for up to six hours a day so I can see them!  The flora is so different in Wyoming and Massachusetts, but I like them both.  Wyoming may be wide open spaces, but if you focus in on the little things around you  it’s easy to appreciate the flora.

Another thing I enjoyed was collecting Limber pine cones for genetic research.  One person would take the pole trimmer and cut out some cones and another person (usually me) scampers around and finds where the pinecones fall, counts them, and then puts them in a burlap bag.  It was messy, because limber pine cones are extremely sappy (kind of like this post).  I wish I had a picture of these cones to show you, but I was too sticky to take out my camera.

– Elizabeth O’Leary

Rawlins, WY

BLM

Fluid Minerals

Once upon a time, on this planet we call Earth, there existed simpler and much less conscious plants and animals that  that lived in an atmosphere which contained much less oxygen than in our present.  As with all living things these organisms died.  Then, over time, and throughout many other unique and novel creatures and eras, microscopic bacteria enzymatically worked upon these prehistoric organisms and successfully broke them down into something that would end up being more valuable to humans than gold or diamonds.  Coupled with the action of  geologic pressure and the correct evolutionary course of modern man, and countless international wars and economic dilemmas, the discovery of fluid minerals came into its short lived existance as man’s undercarriage of a progressive global supply chain and non-renewable combustible, and highly pollutant, natural resource.  Hydrocarbons persist inbetween rock formations deep underground, beneath our beloved hot springs and other precious wildlife refuges, patiently waiting for the  right investors, as in whoever has the most capital, to rip up the surface environment in a pell-mell of machinery to obtain our beloved expendable addiction.

Its important to note that oil and natural gas production does not seem so bad, morally and environmentally, when you drive home from work in the middle of January with full heat blasting on your rose frosted face while driving in your Chevy pick-up, then getting home to a 78 degree house while the outside temperature drops below freezing for the tenth day in a row.  But then you put on the news channel to hear about how you are completely against opposed to new exploration for offshore oil and gas production off the Atlantic coast because you suddenly are worried about the game fish population, although you ate a tuna sandwich for lunch in which the meat came from a diminishing fish population. It is at this point that we, as in all of us who have the luxury of life in America or any first world country, should realize what Newton has passed along to anyone who completed 10th grade physics and may be able to recall his infamous 3rd Law.

My work, as part of this internship, and as possibly best example of combining ‘conservation’ and ‘land management’  together is being part of  Oil and Gas Reclamation.  I am part of the select few, as in only one other person works with me, to inspect oil and gas production wells across northern Montana to determine if energy companies have performed the designated reclamation and environmental protection actions that have been set forth upon them from BLM.  Reclamation services can includes anything from planting the correct seeds, spreading and conserving topsoil, production water disposal and re-injection, reducing road erosion and traffic, and protecting wildlife habitat and nesting grounds.  Personally, I do not do any of the reclamation work itself, but have the grand course of writing letters and calling up any number of energy and production companies to tell them that if they do not conform to written orders and reclamation standards we get to issue them a hefty fine. The most difficult part of my internship, besides having to constantly convince myself that I am doing the environment a favor by driving around a truck hundreds of miles a day to take a few pictures and look at soil quality, is mapping out hundreds of different well locations between as many as 5 counties across northern Montana and driving to them solo. I have covered more ground throughout this summer than I have throughout my entire life before this internship.  So, my conclusion as of now is that it is impossible to have energy production with zero impact on the natural world, but reclamation is in place to ameliorate the negative short and long term economic and environmental effects produced by human desire energy. If we want to enjoy our cars and our heat and anything of the like we must also put back time, money, and energy to conserve the land we are changing.

Spencer Rubin, BLM, Great Falls, MT.

Still looking for a lynx…

My time here in Pinedale, Wyoming is rapidly approaching it’s end. Summer here is fleeting but beautiful. The snow on the mountains barely had time to melt away before it started accumulating again.

This is a typical aspen stand (good for elk bad for snowshoe hares)

This is a typical aspen stand (good for elk bad for snowshoe hares)

Working in a field office so immersed in mineral development has proved to be a challenge at times, and certainly an experience I will not soon forget. I have had many opportunities to work on various different projects around the field office, but was primarily involved in surveying the for snowshoe hare habitat (aka Canada Lynx foraging habitat) in areas where an aspen regeneration/conifer reduction project is proposed. To do this we measure horizontal cover, count and measure the tree species and count the rabbit pellets. I like to keep my bear spray readily accessible in case I startle a grizzly. I have yet to see a hare or a lynx, but I haven’t given up yet.

The view as I am heading into work for the day

The view as I am heading into work for the day

I also spent a large portion of time surveying the landscape for pygmy rabbit habitat as well as for raptor nests and prairie dog towns. After my initial fears of contracting the plague subsided, I decided that they can be cute… from a distance.

Jack Rabbit, Cottontail, Pygmy Rabbit... in case you were wondering

Jack Rabbit, Cottontail, Pygmy Rabbit...

I hope everyone is having a good time and learning a lot.

~ Audrey

Rare Colorado plants and thousands and thousands of native seeds:

It is hard to believe September 09 has rolled around so quickly!  It seems like we were all together just weeks ago watching condors sore along the Grand Canyon’s south rim.  As I am certain those amazing birds continue to sore and flourish in that  place of grandeur, here in central Colorado, my experience with plants is soaring for me.  I truly am enjoying working and learning with one of the best botanists in the country, Carol Dawson.  I also have had the opportunity to work with Peter Gordon, who has worked with Carol now for 5 years.  Both of these folks are fantastic mentors and have shared their knowledge and skills with me throughout this internship experience.  We focus our time monitoring rare Colorado plants and collecting native seeds for SOS.

So I have a couple stories to share with you.  One is about a very rare Penstemon.  I had the opportunity to help monitor and obtain data regarding this plant a couple of weeks ago.  The other story involves collecting seeds for Seeds of Success.  Peter Gordon took all of these great pictures (well I took the one of him), so thanks Peter!

So beautifully rare and precious: It is hard not to think about Darwin and speciation when you work with rare endemic Penstemons.  I always do (think about Darwin when I work around Penstemon species).  And I have a special love for the genus Penstemon since I worked on a rare endemic Penstemon for three years in grad school.  Penstmon is the largest endemic genus in North America.  Scientists believe this is one of a few genera that is an example of continental radiation.  So rather then tons of species evolving quickly on an island setting (adaptive radiation), here tons of Penstemons evolved relatively quickly (5-10 million years) on a Continent, our continent.  Lots of these species are endemic and many are considered rare,  threatened, and globally imperiled.   This summer we have worked with and observed a few more here in Colorado including: Penstemon grahamii, P. penlandii, and P. debilis.

A couple weeks ago we took off toward Glenwood Springs, Colorado to monitor P. debilis, or Parachute Beardtongue. From I-70 looking north you can see the approach raod to get to the place these plants grow.

Sadly you can not see the road zig zagging in this photo, but the site is up in the far oil shale cliffs where they mined for oil shale rock in the 1980's and I think the 1990's.

Sadly you can not see the road zig zagging in this photo, but the site is up in the far oil shale cliffs where they mined for oil shale rock in the 1980's and I think the 1990's.

It looks like a trail zig zagging back and forth switch-back style, a trail you would hike up maybe, but certainly not drive up!  Peter assured me our final destination was near the top of the plateau on an upper most zag.  He did suggest I sit on the left side of the car so as not to pass out while looking down out the window.

Looking down on the road to the site where we worked with Penstemon debilis.

Looking down on the road to the site where we worked with Penstemon debilis.

We did zig-zag up, and true to Penstemon style, I was amazed at where these plants had decided, (I know there is no deciding in evolution), to evolve to selective pressures and become a species, absolutely unbelievable.

Here is a small population growing near the opening of one of the mine shafts.  I think you can see flags indicating individual plants.

Here is a small population growing near the opening of one of the mine shafts. I think you can see flags indicating individual plants.

The plants literally live on steep rocky slopes with thin slabs of shale constantly falling on top of them.  Just like plants that have adapted to shifting sands in sand dune environments, these plants have adapted to thin pieces of shale rock constantly covering up their little plant bodies.

Shale rock cliffs above the plants.  Rocks are constantly falling adding to the talus slope made of shale rock.  Actually a rock fell near Peter as we were collecting data!

Shale rock cliffs above the plants. Rocks are constantly falling adding to the talus slope made of shale rock. Actually a rock fell near Peter as we were collecting data!

Their stems continue to grow outward beyond the rocks that land on them.  You begin to realize why this is one of the rarest Penstemons in North America!  We proceeded to stretch the measuring tapes across the monitoring site and began the process of counting stems.

This is the population of plants we monitored on the steep shale slope.

This is the population of plants we monitored on the steep shale slope.

With this plant it is impossible to count plants.  Most of the plant is covered with rock which makes it difficult to distinguish separate plants.  Carol Dawson decided years ago, when they first began monitoring this little jewel, that the best way to determine the health of the population from year to year was to simply count stems.  So count the stems we did.

Peter Gordon counting stems of Penstemon debilis.

Peter Gordon counting stems of Penstemon debilis.

Here I am struggling to keep stable on the shifting shale as I count Penstemon debilis stems.

Here I am struggling to keep stable on the shifting shale as I count Penstemon debilis stems.

We also determined how many stems had flowers or fruit and how many for simply vegetative.  I was amazed and the amount of seeds these plants were producing.  And with my interest and love for pollination biology, I wondered which bees were hard at work pollinating this plant.  Most Penstemons are pollinated by Osmia bees, so I suspect these were insects hard at work weeks before the seeds developed.

Penstemon debilis flowering.  Notice all the seeds below the plant indicating a bee was hard at work weeks before!

Penstemon debilis flowering. Notice all the seeds below the plant indicating a bee was hard at work weeks before!

Another lovely shot of this extrordinary plant, Penstemon debilis.

Another lovely shot of this extrordinary plant, Penstemon debilis.

And then you have to wonder, where do those seeds go with all of this rock, and just how do the seedlings get started??  It really is all so amazing that species can survive in such seemingly adverse environments.  I think this is one of the most incredible plants I have seen and had the honor to work with, and this is by far one of my favorite experiences this summer.

Seeds, seeds and more seeds
So now on to seed collecting.  This is another part of my internship where I have tons of fun, and I get to use some of my own skills as a botanist to locate species for collection purposes.  Many days I have taken off on my own to search for large populations of native plant species that might possibly make for a great seed collection later in the year.  So far this summer we have collected from approximately 14 different species including: (common names for comfort sake) Mariposa lily (two species), Lovage, Blanket Flower, Sun Loving Cat Paws, Bunny in the grass (love that name), Columbine, Fescue and Green Needle grass, Astragalus (three species), and more.  Just yesterday Peter and I were north west of Boulder, Colorado collecting Scarlet Gilia and Blanket flower.  I am having trouble downloading these photos right now.  I will leave you all with this.  More blogs to come.
Hope everyone is doing fantastic enjoying your internship and this most amazing planet we all share.
Carol English

Heal the world…make it a better place :-)

Me looking confused A day in the life of a CLM Intern…. Hmm, I would rather say five months in the life of a CLM Intern. Granted I won’t discuss all five months and keep you captivated for pages upon pages of experiences and happenings that have made my life so incredibly amazing since the beginning of my internship. Rather, I just want to stress how important and connected each and every one of those days that would make up my time here in Vernal, Utah. Most of what I do is connected to what each and every one of you is doing as well. Hence: Conservation and Land Management. I came into this position with the hopes of expanding my knowledge of plant morphology and taxonomy. I’ve gained so much more than just that; I still have a month or so left!

The Bureau of Land Management’s Vernal Field Office is an Oil & Gas Pilot office for the entire northeast portion of Utah, which covers a HUGE amount of land with an incredibly diverse landscape and ecology across all the areas that make up our portion of the Uintah Basin. It’s absolutely fantastic to be able to go out into the dry high desert two hours south of Vernal and survey and monitor for two rare species of Penstemon one day and then venture up into the green areas northeast of the Ashley National Forest to monitor other bureau sensitive and/or federally listed species. All the while ventures around the entire area between monitoring stints to collect native seeds for Seeds of Success. I can honestly say that my bloody phalanges are entirely worth it since it means experiencing such diverse and astonishing beautiful landscapes in the process. And since Vernal is big with oil and gas, those seed collections that I collect go to something so important: reclamation and restoration of oil pads and wells that have been shut down or abandoned. And those rare plants I mentioned just a while ago…well, they are being directly impacted by industrial-type actions like drilling and similar money-making ventures that don’t typically take place in the traditional American backyard. Mind you, this isn’t a rant against the oil and gas industries. In fact, I understand just how incredibly important they are in our current society’s workings and going-ons. Do I wish there were stricter reforms in place to regulate exactly what they can and cannot do? Of course! If not for the betterment and advancement of our national culture, at least for the sake of the PLANTS!

With a fantastic mentor guiding me along the way and an amazing co-intern keeping me from zoning out in the desert sun…not to mention the countless other amazing people I’ve met out west (I’m from NYC, fyi), the people I’ve met and the relationships I’ve created thanks to this internship have made it all more than worth it. Three words: Net-work-ing! Ok, I know, one word. But let me stress just how amazing this entire program has been in terms of…you know…”meeting people.” People that are incredibly beneficial to have in your little black book. After all, this field we’re all entering, trying to enter, hoping to enter, or just experimenting with, is an incredibly difficult thing to break into. Some might even say it’s all about the people you know…. We’ll see if that’s true….

Coming from the city that never sleeps to a place where most people carry the motto “I HEART DRILLING” can be quite devastating and demoralizing. In fact, it’s the opposite! It’s inspiring to become a part of an environmental movement at the national level where conservationists like me are working hard to save that which we love: those amazing landscapes I experience each and every day. At the same time, it strengthens my morals as I’m constantly tested and put in check by big-business and forced to question the goods and the bads, the rights and the wrongs and the choices each and every one of us have to make every single day we’re breathing on this wonderful continent (both the good air and the bad air, of course!).

I leave you now with a quote from one of my heroes:

“Leave it as it is. The ages have been at work on it and man can only mar it.” – Theodore Roosevelt

Truly,

Daniel Winkler, CLM Intern, Vernal, UT

Saving the world...one little cactus at a time.

Saving the world...one little cactus at a time!

NPS, RTE, and GPS

Greetings!
I have spent the last 4.5 months working as the botanical intern with the National Park Service at two parks within Western Maryland, Catoctin Mountain Park and the C & O Canal. My main objective at both parks has been to monitor the RTE’s (fed speak for rare, threatened, and endangered species) and collect data that could contribute to the plants conservation, and in some instances reintroduction. My plant identification skills have been greatly challenged and subsequently expanded. I have had alot of training and experience with GPS (both Trimble and Garmin) and am currently taking advantage of the online GIS course Dean spoke of at our CBG orientation.
Some of the endangered plant species I have monitored are;
Platanthera grandiflora

Purple fringed orchid

Purple fringed orchid

Coeloglossum viride

Long bracted orchis

Long bracted orchis

Ptilimnium nodosum

Harperella

Harperella

In addition to RTE monitoring, I have been collecting data which is being used to monitor forest regeneration. Deer overpopulation in the Catoctin Mountain Park has decimated the understory layer of the forest. Not only has this resulted in lack of plant diversity, but also contributed to the spread of exotic invasive in the park. The deer will not eat the Berberis thunbergii and Microstegium vemineum that have quickly spread to take up the niches that the lack of herbaceous plants and shrubs has provided.

barberry

Microsegium

Japanese barberry                                           Japanese stilt grass

M15_2009 Jena(2)

Veg Plot data collection

I am quite grateful for the learning opportunity that the CLM internship had afforded me. My favorite part has been when random park employees walk up to me with their top snatch, picture, or description and say “you’re the park botanist, what is this plant?” This happens a lot and I have usually been able to give them a correct identification. This test of my knowledge lets me notice how greatly my plant identification knowledge has grown in the short time that I have been here.

I hope you all are having similar successes!

Jena Race, NPS, Western Maryland

Where’s the Lake?

My blog week assignment came with good timing because I just finished my position in Lakeview, OR last week.  I was only there for a little short of three months because I’m headed off to other adventures (grad school), but even in such a relatively brief time I came away with valuable new skills and experience.

Hart Mountain Antelope Refuge

Hart Mountain Antelope Refuge

Lakeview sits in Oregon’s high desert, at the northwest extent of the Great Basin. I quickly discovered it does not have a lake view. At least not from the streets of the town. I had to hike to the top of Black Cap, a high point in the surrounding hills that houses radio and cell towers, to see Goose Lake a few miles to the south. I guess they can keep the name.

Goose Lake is that long whitish blob right below the horizon.

Goose Lake is that long whitish blob right below the horizon.

During my time in Lakeview my supervisor was Joe Wagner, a fire ecologist who has been with the BLM for almost 40 years, most of which is experience with fire and range management in the Great Basin. My main function in working with Joe was setting up and monitoring fire effects plots. Our work was concerned with vegetation on the sites: frequency of forbs and grasses, cover and density of shrubs and juniper. I learned the joys of driving two and a half hours to a field site, then laying out transect lines through a tangle of juniper limbs and 8 foot high bitterbrush in 95 degree heat (okay, that’s worst case scenario). Fire is a widely used land management tool in the Great Basin but its effects on specific sites are not always well understood since there is so much variability in the plant communities, soil type, slope, etc.  That’s where local case studies like ours come in. I felt like I was doing something that matters, which made the work very satisfying.

Especially for the first few weeks, but to some smaller degree for almost the entire duration of my internship, I missed the climate and scenery of home in the Seattle area. There were no blue, snow-flecked mountains, lush forests or great expanses of deep inviting water.  There were miles and miles of open country covered with sage, rabbitbrush, bitterbrush, greasewood and juniper, flanked by rolling mountain ridges, buttes, and rims.  Almost all the water was in alkali lakes and reservoirs for livestock. The soils were painted more in sandy grays and reds than dark, loamy brown. I thought it somewhat barren and monotonous, but that’s because I wasn’t familiar with it yet. Then I started to learn the identity of vegetation in the landscape by texture and color, make out interesting fire scar mosaics in the hillsides, and realize that at night the low horizon exposed more stars than I had ever seen before.  All the arid Great Basin species became part of my widening view as I learned their names.  Even in late summer when all the grasses and forbs dry up beyond recognition (which makes it really fun to ID them for transect work) their golden color is a beautiful contrast with the crisp blue of a clear sky.

I'm moving in.

I'm moving in.

Things live here, thrive even, but many remain hidden. Some of the most interesting plants are the smallest and easiest to miss, or vary wildly depending on seasonal precipitation. Many animals seek refuge during the heat of the day. But the more time I spent in the field and the closer I looked, the more variation I noticed, the more surprises I found. It grew on me.

I will miss the largely untouched openness of the Oregon outback. The smell of sage. Pronghorn antelope kicking up a trail of dust as they raced across our path and out of sight over a crest. The friendly waves from complete strangers as your vehicles pass on a remote and bumpy dirt road. Tiny Mimulus and Cryptantha dotting the ground like fragile confetti. Towns small and remote enough that an annual “Mosquito Festival” is the most exciting thing going on within about 100 miles.  All these things and more, in an utterly new and unfamiliar place that I thought I could never call home but is now an inextricable part of my life.

-Robbie Lee, Lakeview District BLM, Oregon

Rangeland with junipers at dusk.

There are days…

…when I’m absolutely atwitter about being out here, and there are days when I want to scream.

In regards to the latter, I’m sure that many of you out there are going through the Seeds of Success program. I’m going to posit that this thing is both one of the most enjoyable and most infuriating things I’m doing out here in Ridgecrest. I started back in March, so I had a long time to spend in the office before I was made aware of the SOS program, let alone that I was essentially in charge of it. Now, I deeply enjoy the actual process of going out to collect. What I don’t enjoy is trying to pound the square peg of harsh biological reality into the star shaped hole of the protocol. Out here, a lot of our species are either very

IMG_5757

One stage of the climb up Surprise Canyon

widely dispersed over vast areas, or form little island pockets. In the latter case, getting the prescribed 10,000+ seeds from a single population of over 50 plants can be nearly impossible. I’ve had days where I’ve been out all day long, and scoured the population of over 100 individuals for barely more than 1,000 seeds. Thats the harsh truth about the Mojave. When it blooms, it blooms like crazy, but for the most part, things are not doing a whole heck of a lot. Often, your timing has to be just right to get anything out of these plants.

Case and point. One of my favorite places to collect is one of our canyons known as Surprise canyon, in Panamint Valley.Its one of our few perennially wet canyons, and it boasts a glorious plant assemblage, including some very spectacular special status species, and some endemics to the Death Valley region, to  which Panamint Valley is adjacent. From cliff growing cacti and phacelias to the gigantic Panamint daisies (the flower heads are about 5-7 inches

My mentor next to a Panamint daisy. She's about 5'9".

My mentor next to a Panamint daisy. She's about 5'6".

across), Surprise is one of my favorite locals. And you never know what you’ll find. Case and point, when I was out in lower Surprise, collecting capsules from Eucnide urens, (my gloves did nothing to stop the sting) I found a plant that completely baffled me. It took me a few days to figure it out, and what it turned out to be was Anulocaulis annulatus, an endemic to the area. As I was observing the plant, I saw something on the flowers that I thought was so interesting that I needed to photograph it.

Guess what's happening.

Guess what's happening.

Instead of trying to explain what I saw, I’ll show you (left), and see if you can tell what’s going on. If you can, I’ll be very impressed, because thus far, nobody I’ve shown this to (including several biologists at the office) have figured it out without me giving hints. Let’s see what those young brains’ve got!

Now, I’d love to collect this plant, but seeing as the only population I’ve found has only 10 plants, and they aren’t pumping out seeds like an orchid, its just not going to happen. Its the conundrum of this place. Can’t collect many of the species, because the populations are just not big enough, or they’re special status. We’ve got over 700 species of plant out here, including 32 special status ones, but most of them can’t be collected, because they’re so spread out that they don’t fit the criteria for a continuous population, or they just don’t make enough seeds. But, what’cha `gona do?

Forrest Fruend, BLM Ridgecrest, CA

The Toad Seekers

Here in the dusty sagebrush  of southern Wyoming, my co-intern Brandon Fessler and I have become just what the title of this post suggests. It took some time to accept that we would find any amphibians in this unkind environment, but once the snows of spring had melted our spirits had begun to improve.

Catch of the day - tiger salamander larvae, yum!

Catch of the day - tiger salamander larvae, yum!

menace

menace

The bulk of our time has been spent driving for hours around the Rawlins BLM field district in search of amphibians wherever they may reside. During these expeditions, ever under the relentless and menacing stare of antelope, we have witnessed the miraculously swift metamorphosis of great basin spadefoot toads in tiny puddles of water and we’ve found tiger salamanders flourishing in the most isolated high desert springs.

A puddle of spadefoot toad tadpoles - hope they live!

A puddle of spadefoot toad tadpoles - hope they live!

Throughout the summer we have had the pleasure of assisting the Fish and Wildlife Service with Endangered Species Act related research. Foremost of these is the wyoming toad (Anaxyrus baxteri) reintroduction program. The endangered Wyoming toad is a close relative of the more common woodhouse’s toad, but is isolated to only a handful of plains lakes just west of Laramie.

Toad surgery (PIT tag being inserted subcutaneous)

Toad surgery (PIT tag being inserted subcutaneous)

Our work with the Wyoming toads involved helping conduct surveys for individuals around these lakes. They were quite scarce, but we managed to come upon a few, including an adult male that Brandon had the privilege of PIT tagging for future identification. Wyoming toads have been thought to abstain from breeding in the wild, but one our co-surveyors did happen to find a young of the year toadlet during our last effort. Perhaps there is still hope for the toads.

Timothy C. R. Barwise
Amphibian Monitoring Intern
BLM – Rawlins Field Office
Rawlins, Wyoming

swabbing for fungus, more fun than it sounds.

swabbing for fungus, more fun than it sounds.

This week Tim and I had the pleasure of being part of an inter-agency toad force, searching in the Snowy Mountains for the declining Boreal Toad (Anaxryus [Bufo] boreas boreas). Joined by our boss, Fisheries Biologist Shawn Anderson, we went out with Wyoming Game and Fish State Herpetologist Zack Walker and his Herp Tech John. Being in the pine forest was a nice change of pace from our usual surveys in the sagebrush flats that make up the majority of the Rawlins field office (even though most of the forest is dead, as a result of a pine beetle infestation, so we just pretend it’s autumn and conifers turn colors… ). To our surprise we found some toads, they were little ones, young of the year, which indicates that at that location the toads are breeding.

Surprise, I'm not extinct!

Boreal Toad - Surprise, I'm not extirpated!

The boreal toad (also know as the western toad) was formally a common amphibian in the west, frequently seen in mountain lakes and wet meadows. Due to a skin fungus (Batrachochytrium dendrobatitis) and habitat degradation, the toads have been experiencing a severe decline across their range, especially in the Southern Rocky Mountains. In addition to the toads we also found a number of wood frogs, another high elevation amphibian which has been declining in this area, though not nearly as drastically as the boreal toad.

Northern leopard frog

Northern leopard frog

We also spent time this week in the office aggregating our survey data to send to the US Fish and Wildlife Service. The leopard frog (Lithobates [Rana] pipiens) is being considered by the USFW for listing as a threatened species in the western part of its range.

Big ol' tiger salamander - tried to bite Tim, but soon gave up

Big ol' tiger salamander - tried to bite Tim, but soon gave up

During our general amphibian surveys this season we came across a number of leopard frog sites and so we took these occurrences from our database, mapped them in GIS, wrote a report and sent it all off. It’s very cool helping with this sort of process, it would be nice knowing our efforts contributed, if only in a minor way, to the protection of these beautiful frogs. This internship has been such an amazing experience, I hope to continue working with wildlife and habitat management in the future.

Brandon Fessler
Amphibian Monitoring Intern
BLM – Rawlins Field Office
Rawlins, Wyoming

Plague Dogs

The title of this entry may actually be an exaggeration: the prairie dogs that my fellow intern Michelle and I have been working with this week probably don’t have Yersinia pestis(bubonic plague).  Even so, we’ve been taking precautions like wearing long sleeves (or in my case an old jumpsuit) in the desert heat to avoid flea bites and heavy leather gloves to avoid prairie dog bites.  It turns out that both were great ideas since I’ve picked a few fleas off my arms and been bitten a few times without the gloves being pierced.

The prairie dogs in this colony are... healthy.

The prairie dogs in this colony are... healthy.

Michelle happily buries a prairie dog's head in the hand-crafted anesthetizer mask.

Michelle happily buries a prairie dog's head in the hand-crafted anesthetizer mask.

This current project that we’ve jumped into is intended to evaluate the effectiveness of a new method to treat Utah prairie dogs for fleas that should save time, money, and labor.  The Utah prairie dog (Cynomus parvidens) is actually an endangered species; others, e.g. white-tailed prairie dogs, are common as dirt  but there are likely at most ten thousand Utah prairie dogs left thanks to habitat loss and misguided extermination efforts in decades past funded by the government, ranchers, and farmers.  Several months ago, a few colonies were filled with bait laced with an anti-flea drug.  Our job is to gather the data on how the flea counts are now.  “But how will you count fleas on prairie dogs?” you might ask.  Let me tell you.

The first step is to trap them.  We’ve been setting out standard small mammal traps at the entrances to burrows and lured them inside with delicious off-brand peanut butter: they respond much less favorably to name-brand stuff, apparently.

We keep the prairie dogs cool in the shade while they await processing.

We keep the prairie dogs cool in the shade while they await processing.

After we’ve trapped them, we anesthetize them with a compound called isoflurane.  It’s administered with an improvised face mask made from an old sports drink bottle because funding is always tight when you work for the government.  We sometimes gently whisper things like “Sleeeeep” or “It’ll be all right, sweetheart” or even “Breathe deep, seek peace” just in case the animals can understand us and will calm down a little; they hate the smell of the stuff and are understandably a little panicked about the whole procedure.

Tanya demonstrates to the interns how to properly comb for fleas.

Tanya demonstrates to the interns how to properly comb for fleas.

Once the prairie dogs are out cold, we tag their ears if they haven’t been caught before and then groom them.  The fleas like to hide in the thickest patches of fur, so we comb the whole drugged animal with a flea comb.  All the fleas need to be sent to be identified, so we stash them in bags labeled with each prairie dog’s ID number.

New bling and no fleas, truly this is living.

New bling and no fleas, truly this is living.

When we’re done, we take off the mask and the poor, woozy critter is placed back into a cage so that we can drop it at the site where it was caught.  They don’t seem to mind the whole process that much.  Who could blame them?  They get peanut butter, ear tags, and all the ectoparasites combed out of their fur.  It’s sort of like a five-star dinner, new jewelry, and a spa treatment.

Being interns, we’re not major players in this project and we’re only involved for three days, but that’s part of the beauty of it. Michelle and I continue to get to take part in all kinds of projects here in southern Utah. We’ll both keep updating as we get to do more.

Nelson Stauffer from Cedar City, Utah over and out.