Anthony Hatcher
BLM Vale, Oregon

The first three weeks of my SOS internship have been great. Although I didn’t start working until May 24, I feel that my experience really started several days earlier when I began driving from the North Carolina mountains to Eastern Oregon. Watching the landscape slowly change from forested hills to the flat treeless prairie to high rocky mountains to sagebrush filled foothills was amazing. On the actual first day of my internship I realized how much work was ahead of me. The amount of BLM land in the Vale district is immense and there were tons of plants that I needed to learn, the majority of which I had never seen before. I feel that I am slowly starting to learn the plants here but I still have so many to learn. However, I already have noticed an improvement in my ability to use flora keys. It is really exciting to find a wildflower that I have never seen before and figure out what it is. My mentor Gillian Wigglesworth has been so helpful. She has made my transition to this new work and place extremely easy. My favorite thing about my new home and work has to be the isolation. We will be driving around to different places collecting and monitoring seed, and see maybe one or two other cars the entire time. Over memorial day weekend I went backpacking and didn’t see another person for two and a half days it was a very refreshing change from the densely populated east coast. I also attended Seeds of Success training held here in Vale. Marian from the CBG and Mary from the BLM office in DC were very helpful. I learned so much about seed collecting, plant identification, and especially about the entire process from seed collection to reclamation. So far I am loving my internship. I can’t believe I get paid to see all these beautiful places and have all these new experiences.

I am currently as far west as I have ever been in my life; a few weeks ago I left Chicago to come to a town of 200 and the sagebrush steppe. Out here, people wave as I drive past them and the owner of the supermarket chatted with me for 15 minutes because he noticed I was new. In other words, I am a long way from home!  So far, I love Northern California.  If the cultural differences weren’t enough to make me smile, the different ecosystem is!  It is wild to see mule deer, pronghorn antelope, northern harriers, and sandhill cranes each day on my way to work.  Viewing sagebrush and juniper against the backdrop of the Warner Mountains is something truly special.

I am in the midst of my second week working with the BLM at the Alturas Field Office.  Last week I spent a lot of time getting accustomed to the office, visiting the project sites, and learning about the different positions within the Field Office.  I am very excited to be working with my mentor, the wildlife biologist here. We get along great and I feel very welcome!  I appreciate all of the training that I have been going through: office orientation, safety days, ATV training, and Aspen training, and am feeling more and more prepared to go into the field and participate in various projects.

Generally, my responsibilities here will include flagging some land parcels so that contractors can do juniper cuts – to restore Sage Grouse habitat.  I will also be monitoring raptor nests and Sandhill Cranes.  Vegetation surveys and seed collecting for SOS are also on the agenda.  These projects sound really exciting, and I look forward to the work! Another current Alturas BLM project I’ll be involved with is Aspen delineation and monitoring (in conjunction with Matt, a CLM intern in Cedarville).  I’m excited about the variety of experiences to come!

Being in new places thrills me. And what is even more thrilling is that I am priveleged to be working in this totally different ecosystem, experiencing a unique wildlife. It’s a dream job, really. Me + working + California + wildlife = what looks to be a fulfilling 5 months.

Anya Tyson
Buffalo, WY
BLM, Range Management and Wildlife Biology Intern

In the upland sites of the Powder River Breaks, my eyes wander past the delicate seed heads of needle-and-thread grass west to the stately spread of the Big Horn Mountains. I am not quite at home on the range yet, but I am getting close, and I am excited about the prospect of going solo to do some vegetation monitoring with Miriam, another CLM intern, this week.

I have learned while working with the range folks here in Buffalo that this particular BLM monitoring effort does not primarily concern itself with diligently listing every plant and IDing it to the last taxonomic level. Instead, I have been learning to understand a language of sorts, in which the genera of grasses present can effectively communicate the soil type and other ecological characteristics of a given site. Fundamental to science is the act of making observations over time, and government agencies have the resources to do just that, although they might not be rigorously publishing their data in Science. Hopefully, our monitoring work and the work of many others before and after us will be applied to land management decisions in the future.

Though the botanic work of range management has been engaging, I am excited that my internship will also allow me to work with the wildlife biology folks. Alas, the sage grouse leks are over, but there may still be opportunities to work with this focal species.

Beyond my title as a Range and Wildlife Biology intern, I am also gleaning a great deal of information about energy development, hydrology and the relationship of the BLM to the larger public in northern Wyoming. Coal Bed Methane development is a major force shaping the Powder River Basin and the activities of the BLM’s Buffalo Field office in particular. Though natural gas development might not be as innately appealing to me as learning about plants and animals, I can’t ignore that much of the energy we use in our country must take its toll on land somewhere, and it is important to know about the process and consequences of some of these undertakings.

I have only just begun my second week as an intern, but I am learning the landscape and starting to recognize many of the plants and some of the birds as old friends. As is often the case, the accumulation of this sort of knowledge has got me asking more questions about the place in which I now live. I am excited to continue to work and learn in the mountains, the foothills, and the range- possibly the best theater of cloud and sky I have yet experienced.

Good Evening fellow CLM Interns!

I guess I’ll start with my trip to Salt Lake City for the first National Native Seed Conference. The trip from Carson City to Salt Lake City was long but I enjoyed seeing the beautiful landscapes of Nevada and Utah. Once we got to Salt Lake City I was awe struck with the beauty of the city, the parks, and neighborhoods. As we were driving to pick up our two newest interns we drove by the Mormon Temple, it is a beautiful building comparable to some amazing churches and cathedrals I have seen in my travels in Europe. Well after about an hour of driving up windy mountain roads we finally made it to the Lodge at Snowbird and the rooms were very nice. So to skip ahead to the conference it was an amazing experience, there were so many people from different fields and different agencies all coming together to give the latest information to help all the other agencies with issues such as native seed collection, native plant propagation, restoration ecology, importance of native pollinators, population genetics, and global warming. I particularly enjoyed the presentations on restoration ecology projects and information of native pollinators; all presentations are available on www.nativeseed.info

Now the past two weeks have been very busy, two weeks ago we spent three days camping out on the range helping the BLM range staff conduct a visual assessment of the health of the range. It was a lot of work but we got quite a bit done and it was an educational experience learning about conducting surveys and assessments. One of the nights we went camping was at this beautiful campsite along the shore of Pyramid Lake, it was a small grove of Willow Trees which gave us some shade and a nice change of scenery instead of the usual sight of Sagebrush. That night we burned logs of Sagebrush and Juniper, the smell coming from the fire was amazing; actually I started the campfire myself with a magnesium stick and flint with a knife, I wanted to try to be that guy from that show Man vs Wild. Last week was a full week; we were out in the field every day. Wednesday was awesome we met with members of the Fish and Wildlife Service and they took us to an island in the middle of Pyramid Lake, it is a wildlife area where pelicans go to nest, the boat ride back was amazing being out there on the water and seeing the flocks of pelicans flying alongside us was very memorable. Thursday after working with the BLM range staff again we camped at a mesa nearby, half of us camped at the mesa’s base and the rest camped on the mesa; I didn’t camp on the mesa but I did hike to the top and it was beautiful. The night we spent there was quite exciting because in the middle of the night a coyote came into our campsite and started yelping and howling not far from my tent, at first I was scared but eventually I thought the howling was kind of cool.

Well never a dull moment here in Carson City

See you all soon at the Grand Canyon

Doug S

BLM, Carson City

Packing up my life in Minnesota into my car, a week and a half post-college graduation, and moving to Fort Collins, Colorado to intern with the National Park Service has been quite the whirlwind experience to say the least. I am beginning my second week at my internship, and it would be all too typical to report the old “I love it so far!” line, so I will refrain from using that particular phrase. I am stationed here, between the Biological Resource Management Division and Water Resources, with another intern, Brittany, with whom I share many commonalities and have made a special bond (Avatar anyone?). Not only are the people here in the office extraordinarily bright, kind, passionate, and humorous, but the city is beautiful and welcoming.  Brittany and I have been charged with numerous and exciting responsibilities. My time so far has been spent managing and editing an extensive excel file of invasive animals in the national parks across the country, which will conclude as a national report to Congress. Talk about instant gratification; who knew the hours upon hours of collegiate excel work would be put to such immediate use! Having collaborated on an aquatic invasive species research project with my advisor at Hamline  (http://eco.confex.com/eco/2010/techprogram/P23479.HTM),  getting to continue my education and expand my knowledge on invasives has been a real treat for me as well.

 Up next for us is a weekend camping and exploring in Great Sand Dunes National Park in southern Colorado, with our eyes peeled for any invasives of course! (Particularly rock snot , which Brittany is now an expert in!)

Then, at the end of the month, we head southwest for the weeklong CLM training workshop in the Grand Canyon. Neither of us have ever been, so the experience is going to be that much more amazing. We are planning a mini-road trip, with a night camping in Arches National Park in Moab, Utah, as well as a short stop at the famed “Four Corners”.

Upon our return from the Grand Canyon, we get to spend a week in July doing field work in Rocky Mountain National Park. One of us will be collecting alpine vegetation and soil data, and the other will focus on stream and wetland ecological integrity (http://science.nature.nps.gov/im/units/romn/). Although we truly do love the work we are doing in the office, I will speak for myself and say how absolutely ecstatic I am about getting out in the field and collecting raw data. For me, there is nothing better!

Until next time!

Twenty-one days ago I drove into El Dorado Hills, California, after a three day drive from Sioux County in Iowa where I grew up as a farm girl. I attended Northwestern College in NW Iowa, taught high school biology for a few years in Nebraska, then worked in the Northwestern College admissions office for several years before deciding to go to grad school and get back into a biology career, specifically something involving ecology and/or conservation. This past year I stepped onto a path to get me there by attending grad school at the University of Northern Iowa.

Collecting data on the rare plant Calystegia stebbinsii (Stebbins' morning-glory) three years after this area of Pine Hill Preserve had been burned.

This summer I will be serving as an intern at the BLM Mother Lode Field Office in El Dorado Hills, CA. Specifically, I have been working under the direction of Graciela Hinshaw, the manager of Pine Hill Preserve. Pine Hill Preserve has been established to protect several rare and endangered plant species. Three of these species are endemic to western El Dorado County which has a unique type of soil–gabbro soil of the Rescue series–to which these plants have specifically adapted.

Using a GPS receiver to map a population of the rare plant species Galium californicum ssp. sierrae (El Dorado bedstraw).

The past 3 weeks I have been involved in a wide variety of tasks: meeting with members of the public to show them the rare plants and their protected habitat, surveying for rare plant populations, learning to identify native and invasive plant species, monitoring plants for seed collection and collecting seeds for the Seeds of Success program, pulling invasive species, mapping populations of rare plants species using GPS receivers and GIS, setting up for a public forum (the purpose of the forum was to initiate conversation for community-based planning for the development of a management plan for a newly acquired piece of land connecting two other sections of the Pine Hill Preserve), stocking restrooms with cleaning supplies (via access by river rafting), and attending staff meetings.

Hello,  just a week new in Lander, WY, but it hasn’t lacked excitement. Freezing temperatures in May, 168% of the normal snow pack, and a warm, sunny first week of June have sent Lander, and half a dozen other towns in Fremont County, scrambling to battle flooding rivers. What did they do? First, they called in a stream survey intern.

I arrived the first day of the mayhem. Within two days, National Guard and Air Guard had joined BLM, Forest Service, volunteers, and other organizations, filling and placing sandbags, sand piles, retaining walls, and rebuilding bridges. By mid-week the rivers had receded slightly. Rain set in Friday, and lasted through the weekend. 3-6 feet of snow fell in the Wind River Mountains west of town, meaning in all likelihood, the whole process will repeat this week with the warming temperatures.

I’ll leave it at that as to not sound too much like a weatherman or incident commander, but it has been a fascinating & unique week to begin an internship in which my primary duty is to locate road crossings of streams and assess the crossing quality with respect to fish passage. Only two days of field work to this point, but that’s been enough to know what driving dirt (mud) roads is like after heavy rainfall.

Best of luck to all of you. I look forward to meeting whichever of you I do. Talk to you soon.

Tyler Stuart

Lander, WY

Bureau of Land Management

I am now starting my third week of work at the field station in Pinedale, WY. The first week I was here was mostly paper work and meeting my coworkers. I did get to escape the dull paperwork to do a little field work. Pinedale is like no other place I have ever been. The cold, altitude, and lack of trees takes a little getting used to, more so because I have only lived in South Carolina and South Africa. The beauty of the landscape has something new to offer everyday, but is always breath taking.

I am currently working on three projects. The first is Seeds of Success. In this program we collect the seeds of several species of plants that are important to the reclamation process. The seeds we collect are put into a seed bank to be used at a later date. The second project I am working on is native plant monitoring in reclamation areas. We monitor to see if a certain area has gone through a successful turn over. Thirdly we monitor for invasive plants. WY has a very strict invasive plant program. If we find any invasive plants we report them and they sprayed soon after.

The second week in WY was spent in Rawlins doing mandatory train such as defensive driving, sexual harassment, and other fun things.

I now starting my third week.

Greetings from Rawlins, WY. The first thing you’ll notice about Wyoming is the beautiful countryside and pristine wilderness. Well to be honest, the first thing I noticed was the wind. All day everyday the wind is blowing here which to no one’s surprise is something that the people of Wyoming have come to love and hate. From a sustainability point of view, the harvesting of wind energy is a major industry with wind farms containing a hundred or more turbines spinning away all day long. Despite the controversies regarding wind turbines, these farms are truly an awe inspiring site set against the unique background that is the Wyoming landscape.

I am working with the Bureau of Land Management’s Rawlins Field Office to determine the effectiveness of bird diverters placed on MET station towers. MET towers are placed in areas for about three years to survey the wind and weather conditions to investigate the potential construction of a wind farm. Diverters are recommended on all MET tower guy wires, but there is no evidence in support of diverters actually diverting birds. That’s where my awesome partner and I come in and set up transects back and forth to search for dead birds.

After three weeks this has been one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever lived. I enjoy working for the BLM and I’ve gained much insight into the workings of federal agencies. I hope everyone else is having as good a time as I and I wish everyone the best.