This is my second CLM internship, and also my second time living in Carson  City, NV.  This year I am participating in a different project with the BLM – monitoring and surveying the nearly threatened sage grouse habitat. This has meant much more hiking than last year, often far from a road of any kind, over rough terrain and in sweltering heat. All this off-trail trekking means that I’ve been able to see much more of the landscape than ever before, not to mention more of the wildlife. In one day last week we saw a heard of antelope, 3 goshawks and a red tail, several types of lizards, a rattlesnake, and lastly a scorpion (which incidentally decided to take up residence under my sleeping bag)! We have yet to see any bighorn sheep, but I’m hopeful that I’ll get to see some again this year before the internship is up.

I’ve heard a few people scoff at the fact that Nevada is the most mountainous state in the lower 48 (“Nevada has 172 mountain summits with 2,000 feet (610 m) of prominence. Nevada ranks second in the US, behind Alaska, and ahead of California, Montana, and Washington. This makes Nevada the “Most Mountainous” state in the country, at least by this measure.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevada). I invite these people to try hiking a few miles off trail and see what they think of Nevada’s mountains, and no, that does not mean taking your ATV! That means using your legs and lungs and sweat glands = HIKING. Many people in Nevada have an aversion to walking for some reason. And whenever I go hiking in the Sierras,despite being on the state line, the majority of what I encounter are people from California and their dogs. I think this lack of “walking about” may contribute to Nevada’s lack of public interest in Public Lands. The land seems to be used more for free dumping than anything else. Perhaps if Nevadans could trouble themselves to leave their cars for long enough to appreciate what they have all around them, they would come to the same conclusion that I have. Namely, that their state is incredibly diverse and beautiful, and that it deserves better treatment and care.

Many things can be deemed nice and even beautiful from behind a pane of glass, rolling down the highway. But, some things have to be experienced in a physical way. You have to have the sun on your neck, grit in your teeth and the dust of a place in your nose before you can truly appreciate that summer storm and the way the rain makes the smell of sage hang in the air.

In the past three weeks, we have been in the office only three times. Instead, the majority of our time has been spent in the great outdoors. On our first camping trip we spent the night at Pyramid Lake on the Paiute Tribes’ Reservation; we spent our days with other BLM staff performing range assessments of public lands. We had the opportunity to observe BLM staff in assessing grazing impacts and disturbances on native wildlife for future land management goals. We assisted in this effort by creating species lists of flora at each site, especially noting noxious weeds and other disturbances. Additionally, we also scouted for flowering and seeding native plants for future seed collections. For these trips, we were able to both assist in range assessments and scout for future collections in remote mountainous areas.

Two weeks ago, we were able to visit Anaho Island in Pyramid Lake, thanks to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Anaho Island is a place of dwarf rattlesnakes, giant bull snakes and a nesting place for many of the birds that call Pyramid Lake home, including pelicans and gulls. The isolation of Anaho Island has sparked recent research on its unique snake and rodent populations. We were able to make three seed collections there and hope to return for more!

As the plant life in Nevada is finally starting to produce seed in quantity, our team has been hard at work in the field over the last several weeks. Although our winter lasted longer than usual, the moisture associated with the cooler temperatures has been a great boon to the vegetation here in the sagebrush. Our collections are getting bigger and we’re able to camp out more often. It feels good to be outside and accomplish so much. The field work, while focused on seed collection, allows us to see so much wildlife. We regularly see several species of lizards in addition to quail and a variety of songbirds. Our team members are beginning to recognize a few of Nevada’s birds by both call and sight.

All but one of our CLM team members are from east of the Mississippi and getting acquainted with the foreign landscape certainly took some time. However, with each passing day in the field, our knowledge of the region grows, and with it, a surprising love for the wildness of the landscape. A terrain ‘unfit’ for agriculture, it has been largely left undeveloped. It is truly amazing to go out into the field see so much open space.

We are looking forward to further exploration of the untenable Nevada wilderness.

Brian Josey
Maggie Chan
Sasha Broadstone