I’ve been stationed at the Vale BLM in Oregon since the middle of May. The town of Vale is known for its murals depicting the Oregon Trail. Driving around the 5.5 million acres that make up the Vale District, you often come across historical markers of the Oregon Trail. There is even one place where you can apparently see the wagon ruts still present from when people came to the west. I haven’t stopped to see whether that is actually true or not.
Erigeron linearis population I found when I accidently took a wrong turn
I am in charge of organizing and establishing the Seeds of Success program in Vale. This is the first year that the program has been in this district so I have spent a lot of time trying to find stands of plants that are big enough to collect. I’m originally from Pennsylvania where the diversity of plants is quite obvious. Previously, I had not spent any significant amount of time in the desert so I was skeptical about the diversity of plants that can grow in desert conditions. Well, I now know that there is an overwhelming amount of plants that can grow in the desert and have been challenged to try to learn as many as possible over the past 5 months.
View along the fence line
Besides seed collecting, the first week that I was here I worked with the botanist to do a fence clearance that will be used to keep wild horses out of a spring that they have demolished. We mapped the special status plant sites that we found and moved the proposed placement of the fence accordingly. While walking the proposed fence line, we came to the spring and saw around 40 wild horses. The whole experience was such a great introduction now only to Vale and my internship but the West as well.
Riding to the stream for riparian monitoring
Most of my time has been spent out in the field finding and collecting seeds, but as the seed collecting season has slowed down I have gotten the opportunity to help and learn about riparian monitoring. Last week I went on a two day horseback trip to take pictures at monitoring points and assess whether the stream was properly functioning. Grazing has not occurred along the stream we were monitoring for 6 years. It was incredible to look at pictures from just three years before and see how much the stream has improved.
- Dan taking pictures at photo monitoring point
This internship has been a wonderful opportunity to experience life out west and to learn some of the ins and outs of working for the BLM. I couldn’t have asked for a better introduction into the work force. I will be sad when it is time to leave at the end of October.
Maggie Eshleman, BLM, Vale, Oregon