Sadly, this will be my final blog post as a CLM intern. I recently accepted a position as an Americorps volunteer as a Prairie Science Specialist at the Center for Natural Lands Management (CNLM, haha!) in Olympia, Washington! Check out www.southsoundprairies.org if you are interested! I just moved in yesterday, leaving Lakeview a few weeks early. I am super excited to be in Olympia (It’s between 2 awesome National Parks!!!) and to return to doing research, something that I really miss. . It’s quite an adjustment going from the extreme temperature fluctuations of the sagebrush steppe to the mild and rainy temperate rainforests and prairies. I have a lot of catching up to do on prairie ecosystems, and I can’t wait to learn about the projects going on at CNLM!

Last weekend a group of us drove around the remaining part of our weed mapping study area on our way to some hot springs in the Hart Mountain Antelope Refuge. As we sped past the tens of thousands of acres that will eventually be scoured meter by meter for invasive annual grasses, I realized how extremely vast our study area is. This trip really put things into perspective for me. I know we can’t possibly come close to meeting our initial mapping goals, but it is nice knowing that we are a small piece of the puzzle. Although I am quick to forget it, our work here really is important. Even though it may not always be very fun, exciting, or thought provoking, it is still a significant contribution to the land managers and others looking to make informed decisions about this huge expanse of public land.

Overall CLM has been a great work experience! I have learned a ton. A brief list would include: using Junos, keying out grasses, collecting seeds, monitoring range land health and utilization, navigating crazy BLM roads, and the importance of comfortable boots! It’s been great working with a variety of personalities and having a really laid-back boss, shout out to you, Brennan!

CLM has also been a great experience on a personal level. I’ve definitely gotten to know myself a lot better, I’ve had a chance to discover what I am really interested in, and pursue a (tentative) direction that I would like to go. Although I’m super optimistic about the future, I can’t help but be sad when I reminisce about the wonderful 4.5-ish months spent in Lakeview. I’ve learned so much including: how to French braid, how to eat more vegetables, how to play darts, and I’ve even learned to like some country music! Most importantly I’ve learned that saying yes to an adventure is always more fun than staying home.

I am definitely going to miss all the good times and the awesome people that have been such a huge part of my life here. It’s amazing how quickly complete strangers can become your best friends. It was super difficult to say goodbye, I wish I could just take everyone with me so that I would never have to say it! Farewell fellow CLMers! If you are in the Seattle/Olympia area anytime between now and next September please let me know, I would seriously love some visitors!

Over and out,
Sarah Krock
Lakeview BLM

The past few weeks have seen me chasing grouse all over hill and dale. I don’t know if grouse have a great appreciation for scenery, but they sure do love to hang out on top of hills with beautiful views. Though I’ve mastered the tools of telemetry sometimes it still throws surprising curveballs. Once we heard a pretty strong signal from the top of a mountain. We went down to the foot of the mountain, hiked around searching for the signal, and finally found it faintly pulsing from miles away in the valley. From the opposite side of the valley we could hear it ever so faintly back in the interior. With square miles of roadless valley between these two listening points we had to stop for the day and hope that the bird moves by the next time we look for it.

One of the perks of tramping these hills is all the other wildlife that turns up. Like the golden eagle perched solemnly on a fence post or darting kestrels with voles hanging from the talons. Tiny praying mantises with stunning defensive displays. When we startle a herd of deer or family of antelope I think of the hunters who would enviously place themselves in our shoes. Of course that’s what makes the area so splendid. It is public land so anyone can come and stalk around and see the awesome animals and even hunt them if that is their desire.

Much of the area inhabited by the grouse is the site of an old burn. It’s fascinating to see the progression of recovery. The diversity of forms post-burn that attracts the grouse. I’ve seen all stage of burning at this point. An actually fire, its terrible billows of greasy, poisonous smoke. So visibly foul and polluted, striking fear even when one is safely out of the way. Since then I’ve seen a wash of green grass appear in a matter of days on the slopes. We visited another burn site where the BLM had flown seed and was chaining the ground to turn up the soil and promote germination. A powerful piece of machinery. At the same site a bullhog was in action, placidly chomping down on the  the charred junipers. It’s very thought-provoking to see these powerful forces of destruction, both wild and man-made, that are contradictorily serving to revitalize the landscape.

My internship here ends in just a couple of weeks. Let’s hope I’ll manage to track down the lingering confounding grouse and see the elusive wash of green on the burn fill out and soften the blackened hillsides.

Hello again,

I am currently working on my 6th month here in Coos Bay, Or and it has been a few since I last posted. Things have been going well here on the coast, still plenty of weeds to inventory. I have found it very interesting to watch each plant as well as all the native plants go through their phenology as the summer season progressed. Now that the fall season has arrived, many of these species are shutting down with the much shorter and overcast days and everything is coming to full circle for the year.

One of the most exciting personal side projects I have out in the field along with my bird, herptile, and mammal lists is finding and sampling all the different berries Oregon has to offer. I believe I have successfully sampled all known edible berries except a few that I am currently waiting on to come into season. Each day out in the coastal mountain range never seems to get old. I enjoy so much getting to work in or near some of our late successional reserves and get to enjoy the look of an old growth (some sights not even logged) mixed coniferous forests. It has been such a great experience here getting to experience an entirely new ecosystem and have learned so much.

Luckily, I get to continue working here through the middle of December and will continue surveying as long as it is possible then switch to do some GIS work on the data collected from this season. I have very much enjoyed this position and look forward to the next 3 months I have left here in Oregon.

Nathan Reese

Earlier this week I did something a bit different and attended the inaugural “Outdoor Summit for Youth” BLM conference with a couple other CLM interns.  There were lots of BLM staff and representatives from other governmental agencies and non-profits in attendance.  The conference was put on by the BLM in California with a goal of finding ways to improve young people’s access to and connection with the outdoors.  The BLM wants to better educate, engage, and employ youth to inspire interest in natural resources and to cultivate future leaders.  I’m very excited to see that the BLM recognizes the challenges they face in reaching younger people, especially in underserved communities.  Like most CLM interns, I already have a love for the outdoors and want to work in the environmental field.  It’s hard to say which experiences sparked my interest, but I think it’s important that everyone be given the opportunity to go on a hike for a field trip or go camping or help out with a restoration project or really do anything that creates some curiosity about the outdoors.  I’m already aware of how many incredibly opportunities this internship program has given me to grow and gain new experiences.  However, attending this conference made me realize just how lucky I am and how important it is for others to gain access to similar opportunities.  I’m curious to see what sorts of ideas the BLM took away from the summit but am also glad to be out of a conference room and back at the PMC.

It is my last day here in Klamath Falls, OR, after an awesome internship with USFWS.  I can now PIT-tag fish, electrofish streams, net shock fish like a pro (well, more like an amateur that doesn’t suck quite as much as when she started), stream survey like nobody’s business, and have learned some pretty nifty excel and GIS tricks along the way while wading through our season’s data.  Probably the most fun I’ve had is getting know, camping with, and generally having an awesome time with my fellow interns.  Thanks guys, for a most excellent field season.

My first thought upon arrival at the Lakeview office this summer, looking up at the towering stacks of trend monitoring binders, was “yeah, right.” With 158 three-inch binders full of trend plots in combination with the person-sized cabinets of utilization and project folders, I figured there was no reasonable way we would even open most of them. You know where this is going; four months later I can look at most of those binders and see accomplishment instead of a mountain of endless work. Now starts the real fun of synthesizing all our data with those from the past 40 or more years to determine rangeland health and to assist in the writing of numerous EAs.

Our field season here was wonderful. In addition to learning a ton about plant systematics, ecology, and management practices, we had a lot of fun driving all over the resource area. As a biology purist, I’ve never been very interested in rocks but the area around Lakeview has some of the most interesting geology I have ever seen. In case the southern Oregon desert isn’t high on your list of tourist destinations, consider looking up some of the amazing places we have been on field days: Fort Rock, Crack in the Ground, Hole in the Ground, the sunstone collection area, Abert Rim, the Coyote Hills, the Christmas Valley sand dunes, the obsidian needles mines, and the various lava flows, uplifts, and mesas common to the area.

Although the amount of daily driving has skewed my version of “close,” there are also some amazing sites within a few hours for weekend trips. This little town in the middle of nowhere turns out to be smack dab in the middle of everything. I have not had a single disappointing weekend so far what with the accessibility of Mt. Shasta, Lassen Volcanic National Park, Eugene, Bend, Sisters, Mt. Bachelor, Reno and Lake Tahoe, Boise, and even Portland. It has been a great summer for camping and adventures, but fall is in the air (it has already gotten down to the 30s and 40s here at night) and I’m excited to see what the next few months will bring.

I am already back to school finishing up my undergraduate year and I had such a great summer with the CLM internship at the BLM. I am actually a Native Nevadan living in Northern Wisconsin and I specifically chose Nevada as a worksite in hopes of better understanding the vegetation of my homeland and insight into the career field of Conservation Land Management and botany.

Some new skills I have gained throughout this rewarding experience are: Fire transects, rare species monitoring, seed collecting, ecologic management of invasive annual grasses, drought monitoring, and working in a heat stress environment. I was kind of thrown in the mix of young energetic interns who have been there for months and for the most part, already knew what they were doing. I felt fortunate to learn from such a fun, friendly and professional field crew. They helped me to learn my plant species and how to work and camp in the desert. I caught on to learning new plant species really fast. By frequently seeing the same species, the faster I was able to remember their Latin names and identify their habitats. I really enjoyed teaching my field colleagues about Native American culture and sharing stories about how it was growing up in Nevada, like harvesting pinenuts and medicinal plants.  My mentor, Dean, was really great. He taught me about the ways of our ancestors and what tools and plants they utilized. He also taught me a lot of geology, geomorphology, and botany.

Yes, I have learned a lot! But above all, I have enforced the teaching that we are all related and connected to our surroundings. It is very exciting for people who haven’t experienced nature or who are afraid of the unknown. Our trying to figure out why things are the way they are and ways to better care for the land through science is what keeps us connected to our environment. With this understanding, we are able to love and respect our Earth, and with that, it is our responsibility to help teach others the same lesson.

My favorite part of the internship was camping in the desert with a million stars shining in the sky during a meteor shower. I also loved waking up early in the morning to watch miles of land glow orange as the sun rose. I loved how our tight knit field crew made it a point to eat all meals together and were tons of fun even while working in the peaceful desert! Thank you CLM and thank you Carson City BLM intern team!

It has been more than four months since I arrived in Lakeview and I am continuing to learn all sorts of new things. For a month or so the office revolved around a fire that I could see from the office. This was my first exposure to the fire culture out west.

Out in the field I have continued monitoring and establishing trend plots in the rangeland. I also accompanied the fish and wildlife biologist and a  range specialist doing stream surveys to assess if it is in proper functioning condition. The field season is winding down and there is lots of office work to be done. I have been writing health assessments and updating spreadsheets and will be involved with writing EAs very shortly.

The most exciting work related experience was a tour of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Forensics Laboratory in Ashland, OR. Thanks to Tommy Esson, a big group of people in the surrounding areas were able to learn about the types of wildlife crimes committed and how the lab goes about cracking cases. I was really impressed by the advancement in the instruments they use.

It feels as though this is the home stretch in the internship. Some folks have already moved on, which makes me sad. The CLM interns are some of the coolest people I have ever met and hope to stay in touch in the future. This experience would not have been such a blast without them!

It’s been about three months since I’ve written a post. In three, quick months, I have seen and done so many things out here in northeastern Wyoming. I’ve been to every corner of the Newcastle field office (during Sturgis) while carrying out my Visual Resources Inventory work. I’ve learned all sorts of things: from riding OHV’s to ArcGIS to distinguishing between sedge species. As a recreation intern, though, my most fulfilling experiences have been through my interactions during BLM outreach. I’ve taken kids fishing, taught them orienteering skills, gotten waist deep in cold pond water to teach them about the environment of aquatic insects, and taught them how to not leave a trace while recreating on their public land. The most amazing of these experiences, by far, was helping out with the Upton Summer Discovery Program.

The BLM and the Weston County School District #7 have been teaming up since 2008 to connect these students to the great outdoors. During the two week-long sessions, with ten students each week, we camped out in the Black Hills National Forest, developed our own lessons, taught and played with bright, enthusiastic kids, and hopefully made a lasting impression and inspired some of them to explore more. I have a few more opportunities for outreach while I’m here, but for the most part, I will spend the rest of my internship in the office. All in all, I have had a great time and hope the remainder will be just as interesting.