The winter has been a mild one here compared to the frigid January temps we had last year. Though we have still received some snow around the area! The field office has slowed down quite a bit over the holidays. It was pleasant to see things slow down a bit and enjoy the area over this holiday. It was amazing seeing the valley and surrounding mountains covered in snow as I was leaving for the Thanksgiving break. It doesn’t snow in the valley often so it was a thrill to drive through the snow and rain for a solid 6 hours In The DESERT! Bring on the precipitation!

The Holiday was filled with many parties before slowing down over the break. The office had a really nice Christmas party and a farewell to one of the Law Enforcement officers. It was followed by an evening of bowling. It was a treat to be able to enjoy and chat with everyone in a more casual setting. I also helped with the Christmas Party for the Student Conservation crews. We had dinner and desert prepared for about 25 crew members/leaders and all enjoyed an evening of homemade gift exchanges and conversation. The gift exchange was by far the highlight of the night. The crew members all drew names for gifts. All the gifts had to be made from scraps that had been discovered in the desert over the past few months. They were all so unique and hilarious! Definitely a highlight of the evening.

It has been such a pleasure to continue my close connection with the SCA Desert Restoration Corps in my current position. I led one of the work crews last year and worked closely with the BLM. It’s been great to be able to assist the crews and leaders with information, projects, and general orientation to the area. Last year I experienced land management from the field and daily restoration work. Now, I have been given the opportunity to see things from the larger management perspective. I have enjoyed learning about all the pieces that are balanced and juggled in a land management agency. I have enjoyed the work that I have completed in the wilderness areas.  I have been able to be out in the field gathering data and seeing the actual condition of the land. It has really allowed me to connect with each area that I am surveying and to see it’s unique beauty. The freedom I have been given to oversee field work and projects has been amazing. I have enjoyed the freedom of discovering these lands and learning to view them through the world of use and protection. I have learned a lot through the combination of field monitoring and GIS mapping. I look forward to continuing to work in both areas. I am also looking forward to learning a bit about grant writing and wilderness inventory reports in the next few months.

I am very thankful for the last 5 months here in Ridgecrest. It has been fun and educational. I am so glad that I do not have to say goodbye right now and that I get to continue working with everyone here. It has been awesome getting to know everyone in the office and I have made some good friends. A big thanks to everyone who has supported me through this internship, this includes those in the Ridgecrest Field office and those with the Chicago Botanic Garden. Thanks for making this position available! And a special thank you to Dana for finding a way to keep me on!!! I have sincerely enjoyed the last 5 months and look forward to the next 5!

U2 Joshua Tree location

Yes, U2 fallen Joshua tree!

What? Pictographs!

Inyo Mountains and my rig

Arial photography marker! I had no idea!

Beautiful Coso Wilderness hike

Mining cabin

Old jugs from Coso cabin

Owen Lake Dry Lake bed and southern sierras

Homemade wooden gift!

Yes that is hanging from his ear!

The entire SCA clan!

So…this is it. These past five and a half months have seen me collecting hundreds of thousands of seeds, planting a couple hundred pounds more, doing plant surveys for everything from post-fire monitoring to sage grouse habitat assessments, and tracking sage grouse all over the (northern half) of the field office. It was a lot to pack into what in retrospect seems a very short time—even if I started the internship wondering if five months was going to feel too long.

I came into Bishop with relatively little plant experience and an attitude towards sage scrub that was ambivalent at best. After spending five months in the Bishop field office mainly focusing on seed collecting and vegetation surveys, I can say with confidence that plants are pretty darn cool (don’t get me started on fire restoration projects or shrub adaptations to arid climates unless you want to be there for a while). As for the scrublands—if it weren’t for the lack of deciduous trees and, well, moisture in general, I could happily spend years really getting to know the ecosystem.

Sage brush as far as the eye can see in the Bodie Hills

Working in a small field office is great for getting to know people in every department, and I really got a sense of how the office as a whole operates. Seeing how the BLM carries out its mandate to manage for a variety of uses at the ground level was an experience that was both fascinating and valuable—seeing the challenges involved in balancing occasionally conflicting activities and the value of working directly with the public was valuable in shaping my ideas on what I want to research down the road.

Bishop proved to be an ideal location to see firsthand a variety of conservation efforts throughout the Eastern Sierra. Being in town for both the announcement of Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frog critical habitat and the announcement of the Bi-State sage grouse population as federally threatened provided opportunities to see different federal agencies interacting with the public, which was interesting in itself, and to get a better sense of the differences between the agencies and their philosophies on habitat management, which was fascinating.

Winter is coming to the Eastern Sierra

All good things must come to an end, and once again it is onwards to the next thing—whatever that is. My time as a CLM intern has helped me articulate a few things about where I want to end up in the long run, and even if I don’t end up in a land management position my current research interests definitely reflect my time spent working with land managers on the ground.

Many thanks to my co-workers and friends in Bishop—I couldn’t have asked for a better group to work with. I certainly won’t forget the time I spent wandering the Bodie Hills in the name of all things sage grouse or exploring the Indian Fire any time soon.

Until next time!

The elusive sage grouse

January 6, 2014

Las Cruces, NM

Hello and happy New Year! Today is my first day back in the office after a relaxing holiday vacation, and it sure feels great to be back. Chicago, where I am from, is currently experiencing record low temperatures with a high of -12 and a low of -16. Let me repeat that. Today’s HIGH in Chicago is predicted to be -12. Las Cruces, on the other hand, is still experiencing highs in the upper 50’s and lower 60’s. Like I said, I am very happy to be back.

Before the holidays, Kate and I were busy monitoring the rare plant Peniocereus greggii var. greggii (Night-Blooming Cereus or Queen of the Night cactus), which is a cacti found exclusively in southern New Mexico, northern Mexico, and west Texas. This species has high ornamental value, and has been extirpated from several regions due to overcollection for commercial and private distribution. For more information about this species, see the New Mexico Rare Plants web site.

Night-Blooming Cereus (Peniocereus greggii var. greggii). Photo Credit: Mike Howard

For three weeks, Kate and I travelled to several populations scattered around the bootheel region of New Mexico to gather data on the species’ health and scout the region for new individuals. Currently, there is very limited data on Peniocereus greggii var. greggii, and its habitat preferences are poorly understood. One thing that is known about the species, however, is that it typically grows within a nurse plant, such as Creosotebush (Larrea tridentata). This relationship is beneficial to the Night-Blooming Cereus for several reasons: (1) the shrub overstory provides physical protection from herbivory, trampling, high winds, or other potential sources of damage, (2) the shrub canopy also provides shade, which may prevent damage from excess solar radiation, (3) the nurse plant also increases nutrient and water availability.

Kate and I were assigned to monitor this species because BLM New Mexico has an ongoing project that may threaten the relationship between the Night-Blooming Cereus and its nurse plant. Restore New Mexico is a nine-year-old project whose mission is to restore New Mexico’s land to its former species composition. This includes promoting the spread of native grasses in the Chihuahuan Desert region of the southern portion of the state. Shrubs, such as Creosotebush (Larrea tridentata) and Mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa) have come to dominate the Chihuahuan Desert due to a combination of climate change and overgrazing. In order to facilitate the establishment of native grasses, BLM New Mexico applies herbicide to large portions of its land to kill off the dominant shrub cover. This approach, however, may be problematic for the Night-Blooming Cereus since the herbicide kills off its nurse plants.

One of the Peniocereus greggii populations that Kate and I monitored was divided evenly between treated and untreated parcels of land. Therefore, Our Peniocereus greggii var. greggii monitoring work will hopefully be the beginning of a long term project to assess the affects of herbicide application on Night-Blooming Cereus health. While the data we collected this year have not yet been analyzed, we were surprised to find a significant number of healthy Night-Blooming Cereus individuals within the treated parcels of land. However, long term monitoring is still needed to determine whether it is safe to apply herbicide to areas occupied by rare plants, such as the Night-Blooming Cereus.
-Elisabeth Ward

I have been interning on the Mountain Top ranger district of the San Bernadino National Forest for three weeks now. The SBNF is located in the Transverse Ranges of Southern California, about two hours east of Los Angeles. I have been visiting the LA and Orange county area of Southern California my whole life because of family that lives there, but I had never been to these beautiful mountains before so I had no idea what to expect.

It is a world away up here. For one thing we are about 7,000 feet up and the air is clear and the water is delicious. Quite different from down in the city. There are large juniper and pine trees everywhere, and in different areas of the forest it is high desert. They receive enough snow in the winter to have three ski resorts, which I am very excited about. I am happy to say my view of Southern California being all city and no nature is completely wrong.

So far in my internship I have dealt with computer issues (getting my profile set up and whatnot), helped to close off and put up signs to discourage people from entering bald eagle habitat, marked brush piles not to burn that were potential wood rat and rubber boa habitat, and started writing an invasive plants species identification guide for the SBNF.

One of the coolest projects I am working on is a lichen flora of the SBNF. My other CLM intern colleague and I are working with a lichenologist, who works in the UC Riverside herbarium, to document the lichen flora of this amazing area. Lichens are my passion so this is very exciting for me. We have gone out collecting in the field twice and I went down to the university last week to learn about the database the herbarium there uses and enter some historical lichen collections from the late 1800’s. So cool! I am used to identifying macrolichens, the large lichens that are found in much wetter areas, so this is a completely new experience for me because it is so dry here. Most of the small microlichens we look at are growing as crusts on rocks, trees and on the ground in undisturbed habitat. I am learning to use a hammer and chisel to break chunks of the rock off the large granite boulders to take specimens back to the herbarium.

I am having a great time here so far because my coworkers and mentor are really helpful and welcoming. It is great that after three weeks I am already starting to feel like part of the family up here.

Next time I will post some photos!

Adrienne Simmons, Mountain Top Ranger District, San Bernadino National Forest

Farewell from Wyoming!

Well, I’ve come to the end. Time to bow out and let somebody else have an amazing experience in Laramie.

This was a crazy year for the federal government, which meant a crazy year for its agencies (the BLM), their programs (SOS), and their interns. As an intern outside the BLM office, I had a hard time finding the forms I was meant to fill out and figuring out what pieces of each collection needed to go where. The intern before me left some checklists and instructions, and in turn I tried to organize information for the next person. I think that many of my difficulties will be resolved with the introduction of the new website and the online data entry, which will hopefully be available for 2014 field season.

Everyone I interacted with as part of this program was wonderful. The grad students here at the University of Wyoming helped me get adjusted to the lab and to Laramie, and I will miss them all. Ernie and Ron at the Rocky Mountain Herbarium always made time to check my plant IDs and help me improve my skills. Kayla at Bend Seed Extractory could not have been more friendly or helpful. Megan Haidet at the National Office and Andrew Clark at the National Herbarium kindly fielded all my questions. To all of them and others too numerous to mention, thank you so much! I really appreciate both your work and your attitude.

In the new year, I am headed south to do lab archaeology, helping to look at the plant remains from human sites all over the world. So ends the year of the outside jobs. I loved being in the field, and in addition to learning a whole bunch of new plants, seed-collecting gave me a lot of perspective in archaeology. People in the past were gatherers of seeds and fruits, just like me. I have a much better idea of what it takes to live on a landscape like this. Maybe I can get out in the field next summer by doing nature walks focusing on ethnobotany and paleoethnobotany. That would be a kick. I’ll have to check out organizations in my new town.

I loved Laramie pretty much from the moment I got here, and despite the bitter cold, I am very sad to leave. I never get tired of sunrises over the Laramie Range and sunsets over the Snowies. Here some of the photographic highlights from the past 6 months here–I think you’ll get the picture.

Cheers,
Abby D.

Today is my last day in the Carson City, NV BLM field office.  I have been working here since February, so it’s odd to think that I won’t be doing this anymore.  Over these past few months, I have had a lot of new experiences that I would never have expected before.  I have been to places far from my home and met so many new people.  Before taking this job, I had never even been camping!

Although there were a lot of positive experiences during this internship, there were also a lot of difficult times.  Whether in the field or in the office, there was always work to be done (and never quite enough time to do it all), but that is the nature of working for a multi-use agency.

I can honestly say that I don’t think I would have lasted too long at this job if it hadn’t been for the rest of my intern team.  I always enjoyed working with them, and their moral support made the hard days less difficult for me.  We had so many wonderful experiences together, and they will always be an important part of my life.

Most of the 2013 CCDO intern team at Moon Rocks in Nevada (18 July 2013)

One thing I have learned from this internship is that I would like to be involved with scientific research in my future career. Perhaps I won’t end up working in natural resources at all.  Having said that, I’m glad I did it.

Stefanie Ferrazzano
Botany Intern
Carson City, NV BLM

STATS:

16,883 – total miles driven, the equivalent of driving the entire stretch of Interstate 10 (from Santa Monica, CA to Jacksonville, FL) almost 7 times

0 – number of cows hit with our government rig (and there were a few close calls)

40 – number of seed collections collected! We saved the worst for last – Cylindropuntia leptocaulis (Desert Christmas Cactus) – where every fruit was covered with hundreds of tiny glochids (prickles) and every branch was covered with hundreds of four-inch spiny terror barbs.

56 – miles walked in the Dripping Springs Natural Area trails during my bi-monthly trail monitoring. I have a tough life, let me tell you.

2 – forgotten lunches on travel days that resulted in my upending of rural gas stations looking for anything that wasn’t a candy bar or a savory meat by-product

1- fantastic Indiana Jones-esque hat purchased in Santa Fe. Nothing beats having a rakish, cool look while on your hands and knees crawling under creosote bushes.

1- sweet gig acquired working as a Food Security Coordinator at the Sacramento Food Bank for Americorps! Hooray!

Thanks to Mike Howard, a super cool mentor and great State Botanist, and Krissa and Wes at the Chicago Botanic Garden for making the whole internship process so easy and streamlined and relaxed!  This internship has been a once-in-a-lifetime experience and has helped me tremendously to narrow my future career goals and aspirations.

New Mexico, as I’ve already known, is a unique, beautiful place. You just can’t top the endless vistas, solitude, craggy mountain ranges, diversity of plant life, and quality of the people.

I’ll end with two quotes by my favorite author Ed Abbey, a devoted lover and protector of the desert.  He wrote, “May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.”

And one of my all-time favorites from Desert Solitaire:

“The fire. The odor of burning juniper is the sweetest fragrance on the face of the earth, in my honest judgment; I doubt if all the smoking censers of Dante’s paradise could equal it. One breath of juniper smoke, like the perfume of sagebrush after rain, evokes in magical catalysis, like certain music, the space and light and clarity and piercing strangeness of the American West. Long may it burn.”

Hello everyone, it is my turn to share what I am doing for my CLM internship in Provo Utah at the USDA Shrub Science Lab. My current project is focused on the development of tools to help in the differentiation of species and subspecies of Sagebrush. We are using applied techniques that include chemical ecology, molecular biology, and field monitoring of Sagebrush.

Since I started working in the lab, I have had many opportunities to explore the Wasatch area of Central Utah. One of the things that I am enjoying most about my assignment is the field monitoring of populations of Sagebrush. For the last two months we have registered phenology of Sagebrush and it has been very interesting to see and learn the differences between species.

This month I experienced seed sample collection in the snow, which was something that I really liked. It is very interesting to me to be able to learn all the new techniques, especially the use of applied tools on field and lab.

Personally I am really enjoying my job and my team. They are supporting me on my experiments, and I am learning many things.

I hope you all have a good holiday

Hector Ortiz

USDA Shrub Science Lab Provo, UT

Season’s greetings!

I have been fortunate enough to receive a funding extension here at the Cosumnes River Preserve where I have been stationed for the past several months.  I came to California from Iowa as a CLM intern in May 2012 to work for the BLM at the Cosumnes River Preserve.  I participated in SOS collections, and had a plethora of other tasks which included everything from plant identification to fixing the kitchen sink (literally) and everything in between.  During my first term I was able to network with other CBG interns in my area and organized collecting trips where we were able to travel to do special seed collections.  Collecting native seed in the mountains with a group of other well informed biologists is about as good as it gets for me.  It was a great opportunity to network with fellow interns and combine resources for maximizing efficiency.  A great time was had by all!  When funding from the BLM for my position became constrained, I did go to work for The Nature Conservancy for a brief period last summer doing botanical surveys and data collection, but have gratefully re-joined the Chicago Botanical Garden once again.

I came back to work for the BLM in November 2013 as a CBG intern, and have taken on some new responsibilities.  I will, hopefully, still be coordinating with other CBG interns at the field office and participating in some SOS seed collections during this coming growing season.  I love spending time in the field, and SOS collections provide great opportunities to work outside.  However, my primary responsibility here now will be doing some project management.  I will be in charge of overseeing several restoration projects taking place here at the Preserve from start to finish.  This will be an opportunity to learn the federal processes of permitting, bidding/contracting labor, using field restoration techniques, and evaluating project successes/failures, among other things.

Additionally, with all of the “cold” (California cold- 50’s) weather we have been experiencing, I have taken on several mapping projects.  I love working on GIS projects.  It is such a valuable tool in our field if you take the time to figure out how to use it.  Many of the Preserve’s maps are out of date so I have been compiling data and updating these.  I have also been out collecting data to create maps with information that has never before been displayed.  The more GIS practice I can gain the better.  There is so much we can learn through the use of this program.  If you have ever used ArcMap and been frustrated, join the club, but don’t give up on it.

When I have not been busy with one of the restoration or mapping projects, I have been involved with several other fun ongoing activities at the Preserve.  Every other Wednesday there is a bird survey to record how many birds are using the Preserve, and which units they are utilizing.  This is always a fun and educational activity.  There is also talk of a mountain lion study taking place here in the near future which I’m hoping to participate in.  It seems like there is always something new here if you are looking to get involved.  When I get a weekend with no plans, I like to head into the mountains.  Several times last summer I backpacked in the South Warren Wilderness (northeast corner of CA), quite possibly the only place in California where you can still truly find solitude.  On one trip I hiked for two days without encountering another human being.  It was glorious!  Included are some photos from South Warren-

Merry Christmas friends and co-workers!

South Warren Wilderness backpack trip- summer 2013

South Warren Wilderness backpack trip- summer 2013

South Warren Wilderness backpack trip- summer 2013

South Warren Wilderness backpack trip- summer 2013

South Warren Wilderness backpack trip- summer 2013

Found this laying on the trail while hiking in the back country. A bit ominous

As the seasons change and the temperature drop I transfer from the field to the office.  Here in Denver we have had a little snow but less than back home (Southeast Missouri).  In Missouri, they got over ten inches of snow on top of 1/2 -1 inch of ice, and here in Denver we have only gotten about 6 inches total thus far.  This will all change as the new year begins and the big snows start to come.

In terms of work I have transitioned to a desk and have accumulated numerous books, peer-reviewed journal articles, and field reports that all are to do with population modeling and with the way to determine the status of a plant population with currently available data.  I’m trying to determine if the previously collected data on file can be used to perform a population viability analysis for the Phacelia formosula population that we monitored this last field season.  Several other monitoring efforts were completed in the late 80’s, early 90’s and on into the 2000’s.  Carol (my mentor) started her current monitoring of the species in 2010.  In order to aid the Fish and Wildlife Service on future actions with regards to this species, Carol was asked to try and streamline monitoring efforts so that a better understand of the species ecology could be obtained.  As a part of this effort, I was asked to try and find a way to best present past data and to determine what type of monitoring might provide the best understanding of the species ecology in the future.

As I search the literature pertaining to population modeling and PVA and the kinds of data that they were requiring to achieve an acceptable degree of accuracy we are gradually concluding that population numbers might not be the way to pursue our wanted solution.  In light of failing to find a suitable model that could be used with the available data, a different angle might be needed and that angle might just be to look at the associated habitat and try and configure some habitat models to achieve what we want to achieve.

In my next entry maybe we will have found that solution and I can share what we decided to do.

Regards,

Nathan Redecker

Lakewood, Colorado

Colorado BLM State Office