As I reflect on my five months at the BLM office in Glasgow, Montana, a few main themes come to mind. The first is just how many amazing things I’ve been able to do. I’ve been involved in a variety of projects at work that have enhanced and increased my biology tool kit in a safe, open environment with very knowledgeable people. One of my favourite projects was helping out at the UL Bend Black-footed Ferret Recovery camp. BFFs are the most endangered mammal in NA and this is just one of many sites where they have been reintroduced. I helped trap ferrets and administer booster shots for the plague and canine distemper. All the trapping was done at night, and while it was tiring, sometimes monotonous work, to be able to help the recovery of such a sensitive species was a real joy. As an added bonus, the ferrets are very adorable!
Working at the BLM office also allowed me to interact with seasoned employees in other fields who were more than willing to answer my questions and take me out to see what they do. I was able to go to an archeological dig, help pull out salt cedar saplings from around a reservoir, do the rounds with our ranger, and stake the site for a new reservoir. Being Canadian, it was interesting to discover the various functions and goals of an American agency.
Working as a CLM intern allowed me to intimately experience another culture and landscape. Northeast Montana is unlike anywhere I’ve lived before and it was a lot of fun to immerse myself in the cowboy/small town culture. I met many wonderful people, including my landlady who in essence became my “Montana Mom”.
From the highway you get a sense of what NE Montana is like, but it was by driving all those back roads and hiking across the untouched prairie that the real magic and beauty was revealed. I’m very thankful I had the opportunity to be a CLM intern and for all the special memories I’ve gathered!

Lauren Wiebe
BLM Glasgow

I find it hard to believe that 5 months have passed.  It feels awkward to walk out the front door and feel a cool breeze rather than a sweltering heat wave.  Moving from Chicago to Southeast California was a definite shock when the internship began.  Reflecting upon my experiences out west I can say that I feel less anxious and irritable.  I have retained some cynicism but nonetheless I am at ease when talking with my superiors and working in groups.  My time in the BLM office has definitely prepared me for a job in the future where I will have to work with people who may or may not share common values.  As a professional I feel that I have gained a great deal of experience doing independent work.  There were many occasions when I had to work solo in the field with little information about where I was venturing.  Every time I drove out of the office parking lot in the work vehicle was taking a great risk.  The venomous snakes, summer heat and abandoned mine shafts were always looming threats.  As tacky as it may sound, I feel like more of a man after the internship.

Rewarding experiences that stand out would have to include my bat surveys with expert Patricia Brown.  I partnered with Pat on more than ten occasions to visit abandoned mines and track bat entries and exits with night vision.  Not only did I have the joy of using expensive, militaristic equipment but I also witnessed some fascinating bat behavior.  I don’t know many people who can say that they have worked this closely with flying, nocturnal mammals.  The rattlesnakes that scared me while navigating dark mountainsides with only a headlamp also added to the fun.  Another rewarding experience was the day I substituted our front desk man Murl.  I talked to visitors from all around the country (many who were driving route 66 to LA) as well as some Europeans who were exploring “the land of gold and cowboys”.  It was a challenge to describe a region that I was only beginning to understand to these visitors, but it brought satisfaction that I made their trip less confusing and more exciting.  Last but not least I cannot stress how great the Grand Canyon workshop was.  I wish I could see the other interns again because many of them felt like old friends despite only knowing them for five days or more.  The smores cookout, the ethnobotany class and the weekend hike down to the bottom of Grand Canyon are all moments I will cherish.  New interns that do not attend the workshop will surely miss out.

I think one of the most lasting elements of my CLM internship in Flagstaff, Arizona will be the land itself. Flagstaff is an anomaly; its a Ponderosa-clustered volcano in a sea of red and pink sandstone. It remains cool and rainy during the hot southwestern summers, and sports an astonishing diversity of ecosystems, transitioning from pinyon-juniper forest to alpine tundra in a matter of miles. On one particularly clear day, a friend of mine living in Bryce, UT said he could see the San Francisco Peaks of Flagstaff from the ranger station, some 177 miles away!

The forests here are of a storybook quality, and I enjoyed and wandering through them collecting seed immensely.  Thousands of acres of contiguous national forest surround Flagstaff, all filled with giant butterscotch-smelling trees. Furthermore, there is no understory,  such that one could easily walk for miles and miles, possibly getting separated from their car for hours (not saying that ever happened).  It is not uncommon to catch a gang of elk, or wandering coyote off-guard.

For a multitude of reasons, it is no wonder that this place has particular significance for all the Native American Tribes in the region. Flagstaff is just a special place.  It is for this reason that I feel honored to have had the opportunity to work here, to traverse and memorize its backroads, to learn its flora and collect seed from its variety of ecosystems.  It is encouraging to believe that the seed we collected will be useful for land managers and researchers in the future, who wish to take care of this land.

Stephen Fick

Seeds of Success / Landsward Institute

I am in the final days of my internship as well as my time in the Arizona desert. Things have really begun to change around here, and it makes me a little sad to be leaving. The desert autumn brings the most wonderful weather shift–finally seeing frost on the sagebrush in the early dawn light, seeing my breath, wearing a sweater for most of the day, and actually wanting to be outside after 3pm–these things are all new to me here. The summer heat was so miserable I thought it would never end. Even in late September and early October it continued to break 100 degrees on a regular basis. Then suddenly something happened; we had an early autumn storm–something not very common around here–which brought rain for several days, the most spectacular lightning I’ve ever seen, and very muddy roads. Then it was cool. And that it has stayed. I can now say that it is absolutely perfect hiking weather, but I’m leaving!

The desert isn’t for everybody. I certainly don’t think it’s for me. I’m used to dark green vegetation surrounding me, and humid air, and streams, and sweaters in July. But it has left a certain something in me, something new, maybe an appreciation for the unknown. Never have I seen such vast expanses of territory unoccupied by humans, or really anything else for that matter. Being alone in the desert is like being in space. It’s quiet and still, like a vacuum. But then suddenly you develop an eye for movement… And then you see ground squirrels flashing their white tails at you, and giant grasshoppers, and tiny sparrows flitting between bushes, or the distant Zeeee of a towhee or the laugh of a pinyon jay. During my work surveying Mexican spotted owl potential habitat, I’ve probably stood in places no other human has been. I can appreciate that.

In the last few weeks I’ve checked a few more off of my desert animals checklist, including a tarantula, an owl (probably a short-eared or long-eared), a desert tortoise, and even a baby bighorn sheep!!! I never did and likely never will catch a glimpse of the elusive Mexican spotted owl. But I would like to think that through my work here, I’ve indirectly helped him out somehow. Without having done this internship I never would have gotten to do so many things, and it’s been hard work, but such a unique experience! I’ve thoroughly expanded the skill set to put on my resume, including things like ArcGIS Training, navigation skills, mist netting and banding, construction monitoring, backcountry hiking, bat identification, spotted owl biology and habitat classification, writing reports, learning desert plants, and driving a beast of a truck. So it’s been worthwhile! I leave here with a sense of accomplishment and a wonder at where this will take me next. So, here’s to the UNKNOWN! Woooooooo!!!

Laurel Mundy

BLM Arizona Strip District Office

The collection season is winding down here in Western Nevada, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t the opportunity for one last trip to Anaho Island National Wildlife Refuge on Pyramid Lake to collect native seed. Although it is early November and snow has returned to the higher elevations, there are still an abundance of chenopods, buckwheats, asters, camissonias, and a variety of other sagebrush steppe and salt desert scrub species in seed this time of year.

Team arriving at the Island on USFWS boats

We first travelled to Anaho Island back in June to collect seed from native grasses, forbs, and shrubs, which create an important habitat for the island’s population of American White Pelicans (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos). The colony is one of the two largest American White Pelican colonies in the western U.S. The island also supports a number of other colonial nesting and migratory bird species such as the Common Loon (Gavia immer), as well as a large population of rattlesnakes. 

American White Pelicans off coast of Anaho

Our trips to Anaho Island have encompassed the multidisciplinary and cooperative nature of the CLM Internship and the Carson City BLM office. Although our team is comprised solely of Seeds of Success and botany interns, we had the opportunity to work with other federal agencies on natural resource issues at this wildlife refuge. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service manages the refuge and one of their bird biologists repeatedly escorted us out to the island on USFWS boats for our native seed collections. Also, on our last trip to the Anaho, we met up with U.S. Geological Survey biologists who were counting fish tags from the endangered Cui-ui (Chasmistes cujus), a large sucker fish endemic to Pyramid Lake and the most important food source for the American White Pelican colony there. The birds had regurgitated the fish tags, along with the skeletons of the fish they had consumed. We were able to help the USGS biologists count fish tags in addition to making our native seed collections. The seeds we collected can now be available for any restoration efforts that may be necessary at the wildlife refuge.

Besides all of the great work we were able to accomplish, perhaps the greatest part about our trips to Anaho Island was the fact that we had the opportunity to travel out there at all (the island is closed to the public because it is a wildlife refuge). We were able to enjoy the beautiful scenery, the unique ecosystem, and the amazing wildlife of the island, all while getting our Seeds of Success work done. This is just one of the great opportunities that we wouldn’t be exposed to without the CLM program and we are all very grateful to have participated in such interesting and important conservation work.

Pyramid Lake from Anaho Island

In addition to field work, we also have amazing opportunities to attend workshops and training with other scientists and ecologists. In August, our team was able to attend the “Vegetation Rapid Assessment/Relevé Workshop” given by the California native plant Society (CNPS) in South Lake Tahoe, CA. We had the chance to learn and practice current rapid vegetation assessment techniques with scientists from nonprofits, other federal agencies and academics in a unique fen habitat.

In September, our team attended the “Cheatgrass & Medusahead Management Workshop” hosted by Ecologically-Based Invasive Plant Management (EBIPM) in Reno, NV.  We learned about weed management issues in Northern Nevada and Eastern California, as well as current experimental treatments from leading weed scientists.  This workshop had over 100 participants from local conservation groups, federal agencies, and weed specialists.

In November, we will attend the Great Basin Connectivity and Climate Change Workshop Connectivity and Climate Change Workshop at the University of Nevada, Reno, where researchers will present assessments of riparian vegetation and animal habitat in additional to projections of connectivity for multiple species of animals and plants under different scenarios of environmental change. This will be another great chance to connect with scientists in our area and to learn more about important issues in conservation and natural resources management!

-Maggie Chan and John Krapek, CLM Interns, Carson City, NV

I was given an opportunity to explore, for five months, the manner in which our government manages our public lands. This has been the most useful aspect of my time. I have been working some people who are very passionate about being good stewards of the land they are entrusted to manage. This is not a simple task they have. I know that I will have more respect for our public lands knowing more about their management.
Personally, I will hopefully help to contribute good science to help these managers, in order to simply preserve.
I have learned some good monitoring techniques and started the long task of learning GIS.
I have gotten an opportunity to understand what it is like to work in what would be considered harsh conditons (100+ degree heat in full sun for 8 hours a day). Strangely, I enjoyed it and I now miss it.
My time here went quick.
I am ready for the next opportunity to see things anew.

Jason Reynolds
BLM Grand Junction, CO

November 2010

Hello Current and Future Interns!

As I reflect on my internship experience, I am flooded with positive thoughts. I have benefitted greatly from the training and practical experiences and have significantly expanded my botanical knowledge and comfort with common techniques and protocols. Thanks to the CLM program I possess proficiency keying out plants, collecting voucher specimen, using GPS and GIS technologies, designing plans for and carrying out monitoring of rare species, using a Munsell soil chart to determine soil color, and writing up technical reports for both public and internal audiences. In the last weeks I also got CPR/First Aid Certification. I think it would be very valuable if this was incorporated into the initial CLM training workshop, because many of the interns spend significant time out in the field in often isolated conditions.

Still, the greatest rewards of this experience were the personal ones. Spending everyday outdoors in such a majestic landscape has truly ignited my passion for conservation work. As I wandered the sanctuary of trails other flock to on their days off, I was constantly filled with appreciation. My job was a privilege and, even more importantly, by doing it I was contributing to the preservation of the landscape and the feelings of elation and tranquility we get as its visitors. Getting to work with a fabulous group of people, my mentors Carol Dawson and Peter Gordon and fellow interns Lorenzo Ferrari and Teresa Olson, was a pleasure. Carol’s animation made even the most commonplace tasks seem exciting and Peter’s polite encouragement contributed greatly to our learning. Lorenzo’s caution, Teresa’s focus, and my optimism made for a well-balanced team despite, or perhaps because of, our very different assessments of the situations we encountered. I would also like to thank Krissa (CLM Manager) and Marian (CLM Coordinator) for always making themselves available to assist with any questions or problems that came up. Thank you all for making these 5 months such wonderfully memorable ones for me!

Best of luck to all my fellow interns! I am sure you will continue to do great things!

Here are some photos to illustrate a snippet of my CLM experience:

Paintbrush and Pea.

Valley of the Foothills

We weren't the only ones interested in the flora...

Clouds

The bull snakes mimic of a rattler is too good! They get killed in the confusion.

Bearberry

Prickly Pear juice is yummy as long as you remain cognizant of the glochids.

Sometimes if you spend enough time with people, you start to feel like the same person. Here is a morph of my fellow interns and I.

How the West Was Fun

Landscape with a face.

Did you know Colorado has pelicans? This is their home.

Rocky Mt. High

Red Rocks

Dotsero

I am a mountain girl.

Monitoring at an oil shale mine.

Paint Mines Interpretive Park

North Park Sand Dunes a.k.a. Planet of the Apes

Lorenzo, Me, Teresa

Mt. Evans, me, mountain goats.

Autumn Aspens

Cheers,

Diana DelleChiaie

Conservation and Land Management Intern

Colorado State Office of the Bureau of Land Management

July 2010

Hello Current and Future Interns!

Here’s a brief history lesson of some amazing people and the building that houses their legacy:

The Kolb Brothers Studio, located on the South rim of the Grand Canyon, currently houses art and historical exhibits. While attending the 2010 training trip at the Grand Canyon and checking out an exhibit on plants, I happened to run into the husband of the main historian. He had the most hilarious business card I had ever seen: his name with the word “Retired” underneath, a majestic picture of mountains and clouds, and the words “I have that day off…” While giving me, Marian Hoffner (CLM Internship Coordinator), and two other interns a brief history lesson, he noticed our rapt attention and enthusiasm and offered us a unique behind the scenes tour of the studio that usually only 10 visitors get to see every year.

A glimpse of the grandeur of the South Rim.

Kolb Studio in the present.

The Kolb brothers, Emery and Ellsworth, were entrepreneurs who founded the Bright Angel Trail at the Grand Canyon and built a ramshackle dwelling offically labeled an ‘entertainment studio’ literally hanging out over the canyon rim. They used to charge 50 cents per person and animal headed down the trail. In an effort to attract more visitors, they would stage daring action poses and publish the photographs. They also shot the first motion picture footage of the Grand Canyon while floating down the Colorado River in 1911. As the visitors were making the arduous trek down, the brothers would take their picture, race 8 miles down to the nearest water source to develop the film, and then race back up so they could sell the pictures to the tourists before they departed. It turned out to be a very lucrative endeavor.

The Kolb Brothers

One of the "daring" staged shots used to draw visitors.

We got to tour their original living quarters and photography studio, complete with all the original furniture (Tiffany lamps and elaborately carved wood) and an original photo of Teddy Roosevelt riding down on a mule. The controversial history of the building itself was relayed to our eager ears. When the federal government first acquired the land, the building was viewed as an eyesore. The government officials reluctantly agreed that the brothers could continue to live there until their deaths, after which it would be demolished. However, one of the brothers lived well into his 90s, long enough to make his house eligible to be listed on the National Register of Historical places. Eventually the ‘eyesore’ evolved into a national treasure. In the 1970s when the building was renovated, it was discovered that there was no foundation or secure method of attachment. The house was just hanging out all of those years. Considering the Bright Angel Trail is located along a fault line, it is astonishing that it survived such precarious placement for so many years!

Cheers,

Diana DelleChiaie

Conservation and Land Management Intern

Colorado State Office of the Bureau of Land Management

September 2010

Hello Current and Future Interns!

One of the unique experiences I had this summer was a chance to visit and tour the National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation (NCGRP). Their mission is, ” to acquire, evaluate, preserve, and provide a national collection of genetic resources to secure the biological diversity that underpins a sustainable U.S. agricultural economy through diligent stewardship, research, and communication.” Getting to see where some of the thousands of seeds I collected this summer end up (in a minus 20 degrees Celsius freezer or vat of liquid nitrogen) really made my contribution seem a lot more salient. All the at times monotnous hours I spent out in the field in Colorado enables the valuable research that goes on here – to preserve food security and protect the biodiversity of our country. It was a nice reminder that even the seemingly menial and repetitive tasks you may have to perform as a CLM intern, such as seed collection, have important conservation applications and do make a positive impact.

A vat of liquid nitrogen.

Where the genetic material is kept.

This is how the seed is packaged for long-term storage.

Here is a current germination trial.

If you are interested in learning more about NCGRP, I encourage you to check out their website and take the virtual tour: http://www.ars.usda.gov/Main/site_main.htm?modecode=54-02-05-00

Cheers,

Diana DelleChiaie

Conservation and Land Management Intern

Colorado State Office of the Bureau of Land Management

October 2010

Hello Current and Future Interns!

I am going to tell you about the exciting opportunity I recently had to attend the 37^th Annual Natural Areas Conference in Osage Beach, MO, part of Lake of the Ozarks. The 5-day experience was a great chance for me to interact with conservation-minded professionals, hear about current research, and hone my public speaking abilities by giving a formal presentation.

The majority of participants in the conference were career professionals and I was one of few students/recent grads/jobseekers in attendance. However, the theme of this year’s conference was “Connecting Across Generations and Disciplines” and the conference organizers expressed interest in attracting more younger participants in the future. They also expressed their frustration with lack of able communicators in the industry, and the difficulty of finding recent graduates who have applied experience, like the hands-on experience we have been fortunate enough to get from the CLM Program.

I attended talks on a wide variety of topics including the history of conservation and the Natural Areas Movement, identification of grass species, invasive species, pollinators in the natural system, and fire ecology. Each room had a separate lecture series workshop and each conference attendee could also attend a field trip related to one of the workshops. I chose to go to the hands-on application of prescribed fire. Had the weather been favorable we would have done a controlled burn on a 100 acre plot, but due to lack of rain we were unable to do so. It was still very interesting to see all the equipment, walk the area perimeter, discuss the various steps necessary to carry out a burn, and learn about typical fire behavior. We also visited burn sites in Ozark Caverns and Ha Ha Tonka Parks and compared the vegetation found there with that found in unburned areas.

Attending the conference cemented my desire to work in the field of natural resource management. Meeting so many individuals who were so passionate about their careers and able to make a real difference was very inspiring. One of the sessions I attended was a ‘World Café’ where we broke up into small groups and discussed how we could improve certain aspects of career preparation or effectiveness such as internships, higher education, and job skills. We rotated three times. In the first two rotations we listed any ideas that came into our heads and in the third session we prioritized the most important ones. A representative from each team then presented these ideas to the whole room. In the interest of allowing younger generations to acquire necessary communication skills, I was chosen to present the priorities of the higher education group to a room of over 60 people. This audience proved much larger than that present in the smaller session where I presented the CLM Intern Experience with Krissa (Conservation Scientist and Manager of the CLM program at the Chicago Botanic Garden) and my peers. While speaking in front of so many accomplished people off-the-cuff was a nerve-wracking experience, it made me a lot more confident in my abilities. It also served as an introduction that led to many more people coming up and talking with me than might have happened otherwise. If you have the chance to apply to attend the conference in the future, I would highly recommend it. It is a great learning experience and a lot of fun!

You can learn more about the Natural Areas Association here: http://naturalarea.org/

Cheers,

Diana DelleChiaie

Conservation and Land Management Intern