This was my last week working for the BLM in Pinedale, Wyoming. I have had a great experience and I am planning to come back and at least visit, if not work here, soon. I started my internship coming from a different field and I have enjoyed this work and learned a lot. I was a full time zookeeper before I decided to change my career path and this internship was a great way to experience something new and get my foot in the door with this type of work.

It took me a little while to get used to Wyoming being a New Jersey native and travelling here after living in Florida for over a year but, after the first few weeks it started to feel like home. There is a different culture here that I enjoyed learning about and you can’t beat the recreation opportunities in a town right next to the Wind River Range, Wyoming Range, and just south of Teton National Park and Yellowstone National Park.

Looking out at the Cirque of the Towers in the Wind River Range

Not only did I get to work in the Wyoming Range analyzing potential Lynx habitat but I was also able to learn to identify shrubs, grasses, and forbs of Wyoming while completing vegetation monitoring on grazing allotments. Working for the BLM I got to learn not only about these plants but about grazing and the cattle industry. There is not much public land where I grew up and learning about the controversies involved with this land and the views and opinions from every side was very eye opening.

Getting ready for production clipping

Another, sometimes controversial, activity that I have learned about is hunting. Again, coming from 30 minutes outside of New York City I have never learned much about hunting. I was able to assist Game and Fish at a check station and take out mule deer teeth for aging and lymph nodes to test for Chronic Wasting Disease. I learned about the regulations and how the numbers of tags available for the year are decided. I was also able to help friends prepare their meat and tasted my first game, definitely a new experience!

Freezer full of game!

Overall my time in this internship has been excellent and I would absolutely recommend it to anyone. The people that I worked with in the Pinedale field office were very welcoming and I was lucky to work with and learn from my mentor, Josh. It was nice to be able to work with all of the wildlife biologists and the range conservationists. I was able to meet a lot of people that way and participate in a multitude of projects. My resume has definitely grown and I am excited about my prospects.

I am sad that this is the end of an adventure but I’ll be back for more! See you later Pinedale!

Sydney B.

Wildlife Biology Intern, Pinedale, WY

I am starting my third month in Pinedale. It feels good that the wildlife seasonal and I have both gotten into a routine and can take control of our project each day. Most of the last month has been our Lynx habitat inventories, we only have 10 points left to review. It went by pretty fast and we have been a lot quicker with our assessments, horizontal cover readings, and navigation.  Navigating the two track roads on ridges, hills, and through oil and gas fields has been something to get used to but after the past few weeks I am a lot more confident. We haven’t had to retrace our steps in a while! Oh and mud…the daily rain has begun but I now am very capable of rescuing rigs that are stuck in the mud. I’m sure many other people have been experiencing the same thing. Life skills!

Navigating the faint two track

On our way to work through a maze of roads

We still have Lynx data to complete but I am happy that I still get to go out and help with smaller assignments in between. On my list of upcoming projects we have a sage grouse catch up and radio collar, post burn aspen monitoring, amphibian surveys, signage and fence maintenance, grass height measurements (to account for amount of cover the sage grouse will have to nest in the spring) and a few other surveys that may go through. It has been great to get a lot of experience with a variety of techniques.

Post burn aspen monitoring

I was also lucky enough to hear about the Wyoming Wildlife Society conference in Sheridan this year and our office is allowing us to go. It will be a great networking experience with plenty of student and professional talks and exciting necropsy and habitat workshops. It is only a few weeks away and I am grateful to get to go and help with events and projects at the conference. Can’t wait!

We also found out that some CBG interns who are working in Cheyenne will be coming to Pinedale for a week to get some more field experience. It will be fun to be the one showing people around and I met these interns at the workshop in Chicago so it will be awesome to meet up with them again!

I haven’t stopped exploring either. There are plenty of hikes and National Parks to visit and I’ve been taking advantage of it all!

Alaska Basin

Moose on hike out from “Alaska Basin”

Jackson Lake, Tetons

Oh a hiking we will go!

That’s it for now, but I’m sure I’ll have plenty of adventures for next time!

Sydney

BLM, Pinedale, WY

Hi all!

This is the first post of my internship. I started working in Pinedale, Wyoming the first week of June. I am from the east coast so Wyoming is a whole new experience for me but it has been great so far! I am lucky to have mountain ranges in almost every direction I look. The Wyoming Range is to the West, the Wind Rivers are to the East and the Gros Ventre (pronounced “grow vont”) and Tetons are to the North. It is beautiful out here and the recreation opportunities are fantastic. Camping, hiking, fishing, rafting, climbling, and kayaking are just some of the things I plan on my weekends.

Fremont Lake – Just outside Pinedale

I am a wildlife biology intern this summer and I have already had plenty to learn. Plant identification is what has been taking up a lot of the space in my mind so far. I work for the BLM so I have been able to go out and do vegetation transects on grazing allotments. There are plenty of forbs and grasses to learn out there and you don’t just learn one name but the common name, scientific name, USDA code, and any other short hand your co-workers come up with! It has been very enlightening since I spent most of my time focusing on animal names but you learn quickly when you are collecting the data every day.

Out doing transects

Phlox multiflora – One of my favorites

I have also been lucky enough to work with the Game and Fish department out here and help do vegetation monitoring on treated sites and radio telemetry on elk.

Elk transmitter – finding birth locations

The main project that the wildlife seasonal and I will be working on this summer is a Lynx Habitat Inventory in the Wyoming Range up on Deadline Ridge, a very encouraging name don’t you think? We have more plants to learn but identifying the tree species has come a bit quicker for me than identifying grasses. We have only gone out a few days now but I can’t complain about hiking in some nice tree stands!

Pinedale is a pretty small town but there are plenty of management offices around, including the BLM, Wyoming Game and Fish, the National Forest Service, and the Sublette County Conservation District. It has been nice to be able to help with projects from different groups and to meet all the other seasonal employees. This weekend is the Green River Rendezvous festival in Pinedale that is supposed to relive the history of the Mountain Man. There should be food, horses, mountain men, a parade, and arts and crafts. For a small town, Pinedale does a good job of entertaining!

http://www.pinedaleonline.com/RendezvousDays.HTM

So all in all, I am having an amazing time but I have to go get ready for the Rodeo!

BLM – Pinedale, Wyoming