November 16, 2013 marked another Grasslands Fair at Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge (BANWR) in southern Arizona.  BANWR was established in the 1980’s to protect the critically endangered masked bobwhite quail, a species that is no longer living in the wild within in the United States. Masked bobwhite quail are currently being bred in captivity within the refuge and then released into the wild. This captive breeding program has been underway for over a decade, yet not one reintroduced quail has survived.

Despite the frustrations of the captive breeding program, hundreds of visitors migrated to the refuge to celebrate the grasslands and the unique site that is BANWR. Somewhere between 20 and 30 organizations and vendors set up tables to sell ware or spread information to visitors. Other than Borderlands Restoration, organizations included Altar Valley Conservation Alliance, Tohono Chul Park, Friends of the Santa Cruz River, Avalon Organic Gardens and EcoVillage, Arizona Game and Fish, and many local vendors selling handcrafted ware. There were a few discussions about topics related to ecology including hummingbirds and jaguars.

While there was a fantastic showing of people and the promise of a festival highlighting grasslands, there was actually very little planned that was directly related to grasslands. When questioned, the reserve manager admitted as much. Altar Valley Conservation Alliance displayed information about erosion control (improving grasslands habitat by stopping the unzipping of landscapes). The Borderlands Restoration booth highlighted information about habitat restoration on the landscape scale – including grasslands. And two representatives from Borderlands Restoration got visitors involved by demonstrating how to make clay seed balls to eventually disintegrate with the rains, repopulating the landscape with local, native grasses for the endangered masked bobwhite quail.

While I was in attendance, helping to create clay seed balls with kids, introducing them to restoration activities, I decided that I wanted to pretend that I was leading a grasslands fair. What would I do to incorporate both a love of the grasslands and highlight the unique sense of place that is BANWR?

Driving around BANWR, there is an obvious need to repair the fractured, decaying habitat. Erosion has created gashes dozens of feet deep and growing. The habitat is so unbalanced that the species that the refuge was designed to protect is no longer able to live there, even when introduced. Therefore, I believe that an ethic of restoration and protection should be the focus of any future festivals. And since this fair is a celebration, achievement and accomplishment need to be the underlying factors for any future fairs. I think it would be useful in the future to create a list of topics that vendors/presenters/lecturers should focus on, including: ecological/cultural education, restoration activities, native foods/products sales, lectures on successes/failures of masked bobwhite quail reintroduction, lectures on habitat restoration, youth focus to instill sense of land stewardship to new generation, and newly created economic opportunities thanks to restoration activities. Additionally I think that outstanding individuals should be recognized and visitors should be encouraged to take ownership of the lands through encouragement to dream up the future of BANWR.

Good Mornin’ Y’all!

I hope everyone had a fabulous Thanksgiving!

Well today is more or less the last day of my internship here in Montrose, CO. I really can’t thank everyone here and from the Chicago Botanic Garden enough. This has been my second CLM internship and I absolutely love this program and the opportunities that the Garden/BLM provide for aspiring botanists/biologists. A big shout out and thanks to my “tor” mentor, Ken, the wildlife biologist, Missy, and Carol from the state office for actually hiring me!!! Also a big thanks to Wes and Krissa. Because of you guys I’ve gotten to see those big beautiful mountains pictured below, and do what I love!, everyday and get paid for it to boot! (I did not take that picture! Picture from Google Image Search!!)

San Jaun Mountains

I really feel like I’ve grown up with all the guidance I’ve recieved from Ken (while I’ve always been very responsible with my work life, Ken’s mentoring has even helped me with things outside of work!) When I started my internship I was driving this (again, image taken from Google Image Search!! I don’t know if you’ve noticed but I never have time to take my own pictures!):

Classy Chrysler New Yorker

A classy Chrysler New Yorker which, according to local mechanics, was about to fall apart at any moment.

But after Ken’s mentoring I was able to pull some things together and upgrade to this:

Upgrade!!!

A Subaru Outback that I affectionately call “Peggy Sue” and that will probably not blow up on me (image also taken from Google….).

I know we’re supposed to reflect on our actual internship, but I think it’s important that everyone realize that this internship has affected my personal growth in a positive manner as well. As for what I’ve learned professionally…it’s been a lot. So much that it’ll probably bore everyone if I type it all out, but I will include a picture of a cool map that I made while working here.

A cool map that I made.

While I’m sad my internship is ending, I’ll be mopping up my tears with bagels from my sweet new job as a baker/barista and consoling myself with powder days at Telluride. Additionally, I’ll be spending some time applying to grad school…keep your fingers crossed everyone! Thankfully I’m not too bummed out that my time here is winding down because they really like me here (though I’m not sure why!) and are trying their hardest to make sure I get to come back next spring.

Until April fellow CLMers!!

Brandee Wills
Uncompahgre Field Office – BLM
Montrose, CO

Hello Blog-o-sphere,
This is my penultimate (fun word, means second to last) blog and then I will have ended my second, and final, tour with the CLM program. I will spend my last blog musing about what I have learned, how I have changed, and a few thoughts from a young “scientist.” As the year slows down, we have less and less field work to do and more office work. We are focusing on going through the herbarium back log, collecting what we can from late season seeding plants, and general housekeeping to organize physical and digital clutter. The remaining interns and I are going to create a list of tips and advice for next year’s interns to make their life easier. Simple things like making sure you add metadata to shape files and adding extra information to a voucher collected in the field will make life easier for your future self. Hopefully we can save the next interns time and frustration. Hopefully things wind down quietly and I’ll have plenty of time to job search and figure out my next step. Until next time bloggos.
Nate

Listening in on the SOS call and being updated about what’s happening at other offices was really exciting. Field season is wrapping up and everyone is preparing to collect the late season species to complete their 2013 field season, shipping the remainder of their seeds to Bend, and organizing herbarium vouchers to be sent to the Smithsonian.

In the meantime, I have picked up my Sclerocactus glaucus (Uinta Basin hookless cactus) winter project where I left off last year. The main purpose of my project is to determine the number of individuals by recording total population history and GIS mapping. Ken Holsinger and Brandee Wills at the BLM Uncompahgre Field Office with my mentor Carol Dawson and myself are working together to make this effort as smooth and as accurate as possible. This is just one of the many tasks to be completed for the listed species recovery plan. The overall goal is making the effort for the removal of Sclerocactus glaucus from the list of endangered and threatened species more likely to occur.

Sclerocactus glaucus recruitment

Sclerocactus glaucus

Winter has come to Colorado and the cold weather is here to stay.

CLM in the snow

Until next time folks!

Darnisha Coverson

Bureau of Land Management – Colorado State Office

November 25, 2013

Las Cruces, NM

Greetings!  So much has changed in the past month both in the office and out.  For one thing, it snowed here this past weekend!  As interns in Las Cruces, we have a housing agreement with the BLM.  In exchange for government housing, we have the responsibility of monitoring the trails at Dripping Springs Natural Area two weekend days each month.  Fulfilling this duty yesterday was an absolute pleasure.  As a native Chicagoan, I shouldn’t be so awestruck by snow, but witnessing fresh snowfall in the mountains of New Mexico was stunning.

This weekend’s snow was also a reality check.  For the most part, life in Las Cruces has felt a lot like an extended summer vacation.  Between the consistently sunny weather and my remote living situation (no TV or internet at our house), I feel pretty separated from reality.  I keep anticipating September weather typical of New England, indicating its time to pack my bags and head back to school.  The snow this weekend has set me straight.  My undergraduate years are behind me for good, and the CLM internship has been the perfect jump start to life in the real world.

Pictures from my snowy hike up to Dripping Springs

We have also experienced several changes at the office.  Seed collection season is essentially over, and in its stead, we have helped out with several monitoring projects, including one involving the sand pricklypear cactus (Opunita arenaria).  Because it has a relatively narrow habitat range limited by sandy soils, and it is highly susceptible to changing environmental conditions (e.g. water availability, winter temperatures) and herbivory, the sand pricklypear is listed as a rare plant species in the state of New Mexico.  Several years ago, local officials announced plans of constructing a dam and flood retention pond on a site occupied by a sand pricklypear population.  BLM agreed to the proposal under the condition that the sand pricklypears within the construction site would be transplanted to a new location.  Furthermore, all the transplanted individuals had to be caged in order to minimize herbivory during the plants’ initial establishment.  A couple weeks ago, Kate and I had the opportunity to monitor the success of the sand pricklypear transplant project, and, ultimately, we wrote a comprehensive report summarizes our findings.  I absolutely loved working on this project. I have been quite nostalgic about my college days, and it felt great to write an analytical paper again (did I really just admit that I miss paper-writing?).

One of the caged, transplanted sand pricklypears (Opuntia arenaria) from our monitoring project

Last week, we also worked on an oil well pad restoration project outside Roswell, NM (fun fact: the site we worked at was where Felix Baumgartner landed after his famous space jump).  The ultimate goal of this project has to re-vegetate the area using native plant materials in order to provide suitable habitat for the lesser prairie chicken.  However, the deep sandy soils characteristic of the region are extremely difficult to re-vegetate, so our mentor, Mike Howard, used this project as an opportunity to experiment with restoration techniques.  Sand bluestem (Andropogon hallii) was planted throughout the 3 acre well pad at different pot depths.  While deeper pots are known to facilitate plant establishment, they are also more expensive ( $15 per pot), and Mike wanted to determine if there was a cheaper solution that had a comparable success rate.

Sand bluestem restoration monitoring project outside Roswell, NM

– Elisabeth Ward

This week marks the end of my internship with SOS/CLM. I am tying up my paperwork. My seeds are at the Bend Seed Extractory and my herbarium specimens will be glued and mailed by Wednesday.

Unlike many of the interns with CLM this summer I might be considered in the autumn of my life. With two degrees under my belt and a few grey hairs coloring my head, I am looking at this summer as a building block to my next level of interest. While many of you are starting your careers, I am building on the last one as I consider a B.S. in botany or ecology to add to my BA and MA.
I truly, madly enjoyed every day of my time in the field looking at new landscapes and cementing my appreciations of the Central Oregon landscape. My counsel to those of you starting your careers is to look at the ecological perspective, and combine your botany with another science or comprehensive ecosystem perspective. Be flexible and versatile. Be persistent. The landscape will be there. It is a stark landscape filled with a sense of possibility.

The last collection.

vistas

Spacious

Mysterious

Filled with Solitude

Robin Snyder

2013 SOS/CLM Intern

Prineville District  Office, BLM

Prineville Oregon

November has been wonderful! Finally, the time I’d been waiting for all summer has come! At last, we started planting some of those beautiful native plants that we had been tending to all summer! This has also been the month of giving thanks and give thanks for this opportunity and for the BLM. It gives me such comfort knowing that BLM and other organizations dedicate themselves to nurturing the earth and giving back to it. Collectively, we all help to make this world a better place for the animals and our future generations.
I am also thankful for the holidays that we interns were given, because of it, I was able to have my family come visit.  Together, we were able to go visit family in Oregon as well! I am really excited for the month to come, but it is also a bit sad because the final days of my internship are near. Nonetheless, I look forward to this next month and plan contribute as much as I can before my time is over.

Hello all!

I can’t even begin to describe all the things I’ve learned from my experience in Susanville. But I can tell you that I’m a different person than the one who arrived in June. I had no idea what to expect when I was told I would be working in Northern California. I had little knowledge of western plants. I knew very little about BLM and public lands. And I knew no one in northern California. All of that changed when I arrived at the ELFO and met some wonderful friends who taught me many things.

Now that my time has ended, I reflect on my experience and can’t help but smile remembering all the memories I made. Here are just a few: long bouncy rides in the jeep around the field office, collecting seed on top of mountains, searching for rare plants in Sierra Valley, meeting and working with great people, and having lunch in some of the best spaces. All of the once unknown “fears” have formed into one of the greatest experiences in my life. There were so many times over the last six months I couldn’t believe what I was doing was part of my job. Getting to adventure in all of these beautiful places was a major highlight. Fieldwork has been a great experience and I hope to keep doing it as my career advances. One of the many things I’ll take away from this experience is to do the work you love and keep searching and adventuring until you find it. We all have different skills to contribute in order to get the job done. I will always remember my time spent at the ELFO in Susanville, California. Thanks to Deb (my partner in crime), my wonderful mentor, and all my friends at the ELFO. It’s been so awesome! I can’t wait for my next chapter and the adventures ahead!

All the best.

Carrie, Eagle Lake Field Office

The field season is anything but over here in southeast Arizona. Throughout October and November our crew has been working on a variety of field projects.

Green sunfish removal from Horse Camp Canyon has finally been completed! This is a big success for Heidi Blasius and the BLM office. Removal from this side canyon began in 2009. Horse Camp Canyon is the only known source of green sunfish into Aravaipa Creek. Green sunfish are piscivorous and eat the young of the native fish that live in Aravaipa Creek. I was an integral part of the 2013 removal efforts. I camped with a Southwestern Conservation Corp crew at the west entrance into Aravaipa Canyon for a week in September. We hiked 80 nets into Horse Camp Canyon (HCC), a 5 mile hike from the west entrance. Each day we hiked to the site, set nets, seined, and dip netted, and then hiked out. What a week! Then in October another SCC crew worked at HCC for us. The four pools in HCC were finally deemed clean of green sunfish on 10/30/2013. We removed close to 2,000 green sunfish in 2013! I was given the honor of presenting the results of the non-native removal efforts in HCC at the annual Desert Fishes Council conference. I spent five days in Flagstaff attending the meeting. My presentation went well, despite my nerves. It was great practice in my oral presentation skills as well as data preparation and analysis.

  Myself with an SCC crew after a week working in Horse Camp canyon.

Juvenile Sonoran Mud Turtle

Janyne Little pulling nets in Horse Camp Canyon.

Lowland Leopard frogs in Horse Camp Canyon

 Entry into Horse Camp Canyon from Aravaipa Creek.

Once we returned from the furlough, SOS collections were of high priority. The shutdown occurred just as seeds were ripening in this area.  Recognizing the time constrains of our collection season, our crew had several collection trips each week, as well as collecting on the weekends. Our team has made 49 collections and we still may be able to accumulate more through the end of November and into early December.

 All and all I have thoroughly enjoyed our collection season. Three new interns have started under my mentor over the last couple months. It is great to have some new friends in the area. We have explored new areas of the field office and learned a magnitude of information about native plants. There is no better way to learn the local flora then to be out in it actively identifying things. We have taken several trips with Steven Buckley, a botanist for the NPS. He is extremely knowledgeable of the flora in this area and helped our SOS collection team in correctly identifying plants for collection. He also instructed us in the creation of seed balls. We made over 4,000 seed balls one afternoon that will be used in restoration efforts on the Buenes Aires National Wildlife Refuge. The Buenes Aires National Wildlife Refuge is a beautiful area. Steve accompanied us to Brown Canyon, an area closed to the public. The Canyon was lush and diverse. My favorite plant of the day was Coral Bean. The bright red color of the beans is a message to beware of the lethal poison contained within.

View of Baboquivari Peak from Brown Canyon.

 Seed balls containing native seeds collected in Buenes Aires National Wildlife Refuge

Myself, Andrew Johnson, and Janyne Little after our plant identification hike with Steve Buckley.

 Coral Bean in Brown Canyon

The Aravaipa Creek Bi-annual monitoring was a highlight of our fall field season. Aravaipa creek is home to 7 native species, two of which are federally endangered. The natives include the Longfin dace, Agosia chrysogaster, Speckled dace, Rhinichythys osculus, Spike dace, Meda fulgida, Desert sucker, Catostomus clarkii, Sonoran Sucker, Catostomus insignis, Loach minnow, Tiaroga cobitis, and the Roundtail chub, Gila robusta. Loach minnow and spikedace are the two that are listed. There are very few streams in the southwest that can boost of having this many native fishes. It was my first time identiying several of these species, and really a treat to see the endangered populations doing well. The monitoring took place at 8 different 200 m sites. Each site was seined the entire length, and all the fish were identified and counted.

Spikedace Loach minnow Modified mouth of a Desert Sucker

 Sorting fish from a seine haul

Myself recording data

 Seining

It has been a great couple of months. I greatly enjoy the extended field season in Arizona. It’s November and we are still able to perform non-native removal in Bonita Creek (although this results in frozen fingers). I’m looking forward to holiday season and visiting Arkansas for a couple weeks. I hope that all other CLM interns and CBG staff also enjoy lovely holidays.

-Rosalee Reese

For my final blog post, I’d mainly like to thank the people who have helped to expand my knowledge and experience of practicing conservation and land management in the field. Being a part of the interaction between oil and gas development companies and government agencies was extremely fascinating. I’m proud to have played a part in the maintenance of our natural resources and look forward to doing so again in the future.

With the CLM internship under my belt, I look forward to applying what I have learned in my future endeavors.