As my mentor said in the beginning of October, I came in under odd circumstances with the federal government, so why should my departure be any different? My internship was put on hold in the spring due to the sequester. Getting furloughed certainly was not the way I wanted to end my term in Cedar City, Utah, however an important part of this entire experience is understanding the ins-and-outs of working for the U.S. government. While I wish I was leaving on a better note, being furloughed does not take away from the fantastic experience I had here.

I have always been drawn towards studying endangered species, and I found it particularly rewarding to work on projects that involved sensitive species here in southwest Utah. Collecting data on greater sage grouse habitat, relocating Utah prairie dogs and conducting raptor surveys always felt worthwhile afterwards. The information my co-intern Jake and I collected didn’t simply get put into a folder and forgotten about, but used in making management decisions. And that is pretty gratifying, knowing that your work as an intern is valuable.

Learning to identify whole bunch of new plants and birds was key for me, since I was totally unfamiliar with the ecosystem of the southwest. I came knowing only Wyoming sage brush and a handful of western birds and I’m leaving feeling confident in my ability to name plants and animals found throughout the field office. (Though I must admit, some of those grasses are a real pain!) After learning our key species Jake and I were on our own for the majority of the time. Our mentor was supportive and got us involved with great projects, but rarely came out to the field with us. Being able to carry out protocols, navigate to remote corners of the field office, and getting our clunky GPS unit to work were daily difficulties. But it always felt good finishing a challenging day. It is a boosts to your self-confidence and is appreciated by supervisors.

My favorite tasks during this field season were early morning bird surveys. There were a handful of days that began at 3am but they were worth it because each sunrise was stunning and the birds never failed to put on a show. These surveys were a good learning experience for me on a few levels – Turns out I can get up at an ungodly hour on consecutive days and carry out good work, and I actually like doing it. Also, 5am is a good time to learn bird calls.

Male Blue Grosbeak Passerina caerulea

On a personal note, living in Utah was an adventure. I was nicely situated between lots of fantastic hiking spots, and spent plenty of time in Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks and Cedar Breaks National Monument. For future CLM interns, I highly recommend exploring your surroundings during your time off. Get a feel for the new culture and new environment. I don’t know if I’ll ever be back in this corner of the world, so I had to make sure to see as much as this spectacular land as possible. Besides, it’s fun driving around beautiful country and maybe getting a little lost along the way.

Hoodoos in Dixie National Forest

I never would have found myself out in Utah if it was not for the CLM internship program. This was an adventure-and-a-half. For budding biologists and botanists, this program is for you. I wish I could say a proper good-bye to the men and women in my office that made this a wonderful field season, but unfortunately I can’t stick around until the end of the government shutdown. I’m moving on to another adventure, and will be using the skills I’ve gained during my time in Utah.

Be safe, drink plenty of water, and I’ll see you in the field!

Maria

For a moment there I thought the monsoon season was over. August here in southwest Utah was defined by bright, hot days and evening thunderstorms that produced more lightening than rain. Now it is September, the beginning of fall, but it certainly does not feel like fall. It feels like spring. Every day there are steady rainstorms, occasionally heavy rain that will fill normally dry washes. Being from the east coast, I am enjoying this refreshing rain. It has cooled off the hot desert and revived the dry, fire-prone sagebrush habitats.

We have started to do some browse assessments, examining key species along a transect to determine how much vegetation is available for animals like mule deer, elk, wild horses and cattle. This involves measuring the leaders on the key species, which is often Wyoming sagebrush. With all this recent rain, all the vegetation has experienced a lot of new growth, like the sagebrush below.

Grasses that were brown and desiccated a few weeks ago are now bright green and alive. Valleys are full of yellow and purple flowers. Lupine, globemallow, sunflowers and thistles are reappearing. The entire region looks more vibrant and alive than it did in May, when I first began work with the Cedar City, BLM office.

September is going to be a month full of work and wrapping up reports as my internship is coming to a close in a few weeks. For those experiencing a lot of rain, be safe out there. Flash floods are a real threat you got to be aware of. I know a lot of interns are also preparing to finish up in different offices, so be sure to enjoy your final weeks!

Southern Utah is inhabited by several distinctive species, some of which are endemic to the southwest United States.  My co-intern Jake and I have done a lot of work focused on birds – raptors, sage-grouse and common birds found in riparian and sagebrush habitats. We took a break from various bird surveys to help out Cedar City’s Division of Wildlife Resources (DWR) with a special rodent species, the Utah prairie dog (Cynomys parvidens).

Utah prairie dogs are endemic to southern Utah, and they are currently categorized as threatened on the endangered species list. Prairie dogs are a keystone species. The extensive burrows they create aerate soils and help moisture penetrate the soil, which is extremely important in this part of the world. Prairie dogs suffered serious persecution after settlers made their way to Utah, prompting federal protection from the Fish and Wildlife Service in 1972.

Utah prairie dogs have made a comeback in southern Utah, however, they have moved into populated areas. That is where the DWR comes in. Cedar City’s golf course and cemetery are full of Utah prairie dogs. And I don’t blame the dogs – there’s plenty of grass and water in these two areas, compared to the drought-stricken rangeland. Prairie dogs can also be found on private lots, digging up back yards and gardens. This does not fly with the general public, and the DWR has stepped up to humanely trap and translocate prairie dogs under the Iron County Habitat Conservation Plan.

Trapping prairie dogs is much harder than it sounds. For one, they are exceptionally smart rodents. They know what’s up after they see one or two individuals get caught. Despite the lure of a thick lump of fresh peanut butter and oats, a lot of prairie dogs stay away from the open traps. Instead, they might reach inside to grab the bait. One of the wildlife technicians I worked with said she witnessed a prairie dog dig underneath a trap to access the peanut butter. Some individuals though, just can’t resist the treat. After four days of trapping on the golf course, we averaged six prairie dogs a day. More would be caught at the cemetery, local baseball fields, and even the small Cedar City airport.

Cedar City’s golf course is full of Utah prairie dogs! This was just a small group. 

We assisted in processing the prairie dogs, which included weighing, determining sex, and piercing their ears with little silver ear tags for future identification. The prairie dogs are then transported to one of three recovery areas on federal land. While these areas might not be as green as a golf course, there is grass and water, and the DWR provides extra feed for the dogs that have been recently moved and are still accustomed to food-rich, man-made habitats.

The Awapa Range, a recovery area where we dropped off several prairie dogs. In the background you can make out some Utah prairie dog burrows.  

Spending time observing and handling these creatures was a real treat, and hopefully my fellow intern and I will get a chance to help the DWR again in the coming weeks. While Utah prairie dogs are not a popular animal in these parts, it is good to see the public and state and federal groups work together to help this species and land owners. It demonstrates on a small, local scale that conservation and economic growth can coexist.

The last three weeks here in southwest Utah, my fellow CLM intern and I have been busy doing sage grouse habitat assessments. We have bounced around BLM land, set up basic transects and evaluated specific areas to determine what areas in our field office might be good habitat for the elusive sage grouse. Despite covering a lot of acreage, I have yet to see a sage grouse. In a region full of sagebrush and known breeding grounds – known as leks – I hoped to catch a glimpse of one of these uncommon birds.

The greater sage grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) is a large bird, weighing up to seven pounds and reaching 30 inches long. They have a gray-brown speckled body and a black belly patch, which helps distinguish them from other grouse species that can be found in sagebrush. The most common images of sage grouse are the puffed up males, displaying yellow air sacks in their white breasts during breeding displays in the spring.

A male sage grouse in full mating display. Photo courtesy of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service http://www.fws.gov/mountain-prairie/species/birds/sagegrouse/

Sage grouse are, as the name suggests, are sagebrush obligates. In the winter, sagebrush is all this grouse eats. It offers important cover from the snow and cold. In warmer months, the grouse nibbles on insects, forbs, and sagebrush. The protein-rich bugs, seeds and herbaceous plants found among healthy sagebrush habitat are critical to juvenile grouse.

The reason why I haven’t spotted a sage grouse yet is because these birds’ numbers are down considerably due to habitat loss and fragmentation. In the areas we have surveyed, the sagebrush habitat is split up by roads, fences, and towns. The bird is a candidate for listing under the Endangered Species Act, a move that would prevent activities such as cattle grazing or energy exploration in areas where the grouse occurs. Boosting sage grouse numbers and protecting its habitat would prevent conflict among stakeholders who still wish to utilize the land, plus it would result in healthier rangelands. Other organisms that depend on sagebrush ecosystems, like mule deer, pygmy rabbits, pronghorn, and sage sparrows would benefit from the protection of sage grouse.

Moving the sage grouse to the Endangered Species Act is a controversial subject. The BLM oversees acres that are for multiple uses; monitoring different species, grazing, recreation, and energy production. Finding a balance between these different land uses and protecting the sage grouse is a challenge, and is bound to spark debate.

As a wildlife intern, I feel strongly about conservation measures. However it is important to remember all the stakeholders involved in this conversation. I do hope that one day while my partner and I are taking inventory of the grasses at a transect we’ll spot one of these elusive birds. Sage grouse are an important part of the American west, and hopefully will be here for many more generations.

If you guessed getting ready for bird surveys, you are correct!

In the southwest United States, the best time to observe wildlife is when it is cool, which is either at dawn or dusk. Birds in particular are very active in the morning hours, when there is less background noise and songs carry long distances. When it gets hot, most birds hunker down. That means bird biologists have got to get out bright (actually, no, dark) and early to complete thorough bird surveys.

On Tuesday, my fellow wildlife intern and I participated in two intense bird surveys: a breeding bird survey in the morning, then a nightjar survey in the evening. The breeding bird survey sent us out at 3:30am to a route our wildlife biologist, Sheri, has been running for four years now. We drove to specific points, turned off the car engine, and had three minutes to name all the birds we saw and heard. Fifty points were plotted on our GPS, and the birds kept us busy at each one. Birds we saw included common nighthawks at dawn, violet-green swallows in residential areas, lots of horned larks, golden eagles and burrowing owls on rangeland. It felt like we had been working all day by the time the sun came up and brightened the mountains.

We took a break until that evening when it was time to go searching for nightjars. Nightjars – also known as goatsuckers because it was once believed that they sucked milk from goats during under the cover of darkness – are small nocturnal birds that rest on the ground and feed on insects at night. Like the breeding bird survey in the morning, we drove to specific points and paused to listen for the birds. The two species of nightjars in Southwest Utah are the common nighthawk and common poorwill. In the bright moonlight it was possible to see the birds as they flew erratically after moths, but listening for their songs was the sure-fire way to identify the birds. Nighthawks make a nasally peer, while poorwills softly say their name, poor-will.

On Tuesday, the nightjar survey concluded close to midnight before driving back to the office. The nightjar surveys continued Wednesday and Thursday evenings. Despite being pretty tired by the end of the week, it was worth seeing and hearing birds and other wildlife before the rest of Utah woke up. Wildlife biology requires a high level of patience and endurance. Often you don’t see your target species. Last night we only heard one poorwill. Oftentimes you must work odd hours in remote places. But it is worth it, because the data goes toward conserving habitats and species. Wildlife biology is difficult work, and for me, it is absolutely worth it, even if I got to be up and working at 3 am.

Hello and thank you for reading my first blog entry! I hope you return frequently to check out my entries, plus all posts from fellow CLM interns. My name is Maria, and I’m interning with the Bureau of Land Management in Cedar City, Utah.

This was my first week at work, and it has been all about transitioning and getting comfortable in a brand new part of the world. I am from Maine, and I went to college at St. Lawrence University in Northern New York, where I studied conservation biology and anthropology. Prior to the Chicago Botanical Garden giving me the opportunity to move out to Utah, the farthest west I had ever traveled in the U.S. was Gettysburg, Pennsylvania on a family trip. I knew that living and working in Utah was going to be very new and exciting.

The landscape is the first thing I notice. Even though I’ve been living in Utah for a few weeks now, I still can’t get over the impressive landscape. Cedar City is surrounded by mountains and sagebrush habitat, a stark difference from the heavily forested and gentle slopes of the east coast. Mule deer, pronghorn, and wild horses are a common sight around the Cedar City BLM field office. The birds are different too. I am an avid birder, and working on avian surveys and raptor nesting projects in the coming weeks will help me learn about the many different west coast species that I’m unfamiliar with.

Recently it has been raining a lot in Maine, but in Utah it has been comfortably warn and dry. The relatively arid environment preserves ancient geologic features. The bare rock of the nearby mountains and canyons of Southern Utah are home to more than great wildlife, but also prehistoric petroglyphs. The Parowan Gap, fifteen minutes down the road from the BLM, is a gallery of well-preserved rock art, some of it dating back at least 12,000 years. What exactly the carvings represent is a mystery, but despite that, the drawings of the Fremont, Hopi and Paiute people over thousands of years are incredible and are worth visiting.

So far, working with the BLM has been insightful and a lot of fun. More fieldwork is on the way, and I’ll be sure to report back about further adventures here in Utah!