While camping a few weekends ago, I was asked by another camper where I lived and I replied, “Richfield, Utah.” They immediately shot back, “Why?”  That pretty much sums up most people’s perspective of the agricultural town containing about 7,500 people.  But there’s a detailed answer to that question.

Most people know Utah for its homogeneous culture and lack of good beer.  Utah is also famous for its sandy canyons and stretching desert.  Intrigued by the words of Edward Abbey, one of the reasons I accepted this internship in Richfield was to experience the mystery and enchantment of the tablelands he experienced and wrote about. Watching the sunrise from our field sites, some of which are dubbed badlands for their lack of resources but possessing jaw-dropping beauty, I can’t help but feel fortunate.

My internship is divided into two parts; working with an endangered cactus species, Sclerocactus wrightiae (my love for succulents being another reason for accepting this position) and Seeds of Success.

Our typical day in the field involves revisiting known Sclerocactus localities and monitoring for cactus survival, including recording number of cactus found, size, geographic information, and several other variables to fully grasp the cactus habitat and environmental impact.  In the office, we spend time analyzing the large amount of data. This extensive study is successfully helping to ensure the survival of Sclerocactus wrightiae as well as keep BLM land monitored for multi-use purposes. Fortunately, the recent rains have perked up the cactus and provided quite an advantage at finding S. wrightiae! Although the dry spring in Utah did not pan out in our favor for collecting seed, as we drive throughout Utah our eyes are frequently peeled for large groups of plants that will potientially produce at least 10,000 seeds. There are some promising sites and we have collected vouchers. The seed is so close to being ready! I am looking forward to honing my plant identification skills and being able to recognize new plant species! If I haven’t mentioned it enough, again, I feel so fortunate that I am getting paid to play outside and contribute to environmental consciousness!

Much of my free time in the past month has been spent seed collecting and identifying plant species for potential collections.  Although many parts of California have dried out completely, there are still many flowering species here on the wetland.

We have had some very large scale drug operations on the preserve lately.  This has restricted my work and collections as entire sections of the preserve have been shut down to all types of operations.  It’s one more danger to add to the already substantial list of potential threats.

Between the weather elements, the unfriendly environments, and additional dangers of our jobs, it has become abundantly clear that seed collection is not always a walk in the park!  I’m sure this type of work is not for everyone, but for me, there’s nowhere else I would rather be.

The wildlife viewing has continued to be outstanding here.  I regularly see coyotes, owls, pheasants, snakes, river otters, minks, deer, turtles, quail, eagles, hawks, turkeys, rabbits, lizards, and ground squirrels, among other critters.  We also have a large population of feral cats inhabiting the preserve and although cute and fluffy, feral kittens are born dangerous!

Most recently we have been doing work to prepare for the fall “flood-up”, when our artificial wetlands are flooded for the large numbers of migrating birds passing by.  I am hoping I will have the opportunity to see these magnificant creatures arriving by the thousands.

Hi Everyone!
I am finishing up my internship, so this is my final blog post. I have had a blast working for the Park Service; I have learned a ton, worked on so many different projects and met some really cool people. Overall, I would say this summer was a success and my experiences here greatly exceeded my expectations. From cutting cattails in Cumberland, searching for the federally listed Harperella, to exploring the Smithsonian behind the scenes, I have some great experiences that have helped me move into the next steps of my career.

I would say the most exciting project I worked on was doing surveys for a reintroduction of the federally listed plant Harperella nodosum. This involved several days of driving along the C&O Canal and getting to wade out into flooded sections searching for this plant. Harperella flower in the summer, so it is best to search for them then as they are easier to spot. Searching at this time has the added advantage of viewing all the other summer plants in bloom, brightening the canal with splashes of color. Working on projects such as this, it is hard to imagine this as “work”. It reminds me why I do what I do and why I love my job.

Sadly, I am leaving my position early, as I have accepted a job with another agency in Florida. I will miss working with the folks at C&O Canal and Catoctin Park. My time here was well spent, both at work outside as well as playing along the rivers and streams after work. I will miss my new friends and will always cherish the memories I have made.
Thanks to NPS and CBG for this amazing experience!
Stephanie

Wow, August really flew by.  This was a really great month; I am loving my job and really enjoying my time out here.  Earlier this month I organized a solo project that involves going out to potential leasing sites for minerals and doing a brief vegetation and wildlife assessment then taking a photo and GPS point.  At first, I wasn’t too thrilled with the prospect, it sounded…….uneventful.  I was mistaken; I have gone to so many places in our field office’s management area that I wouldn’t have been to visit otherwise.  I did field site visits from the western foothills of the Shoshoni forest to the eastern foothills of the Big Horn forest and all the wonderfully rugged sage scrub and badlands in-between.   I drove around on roads (I use the term loosely) that were so hazardous I was honestly surprised that my Ford Explorer could traverse them. I saw black bear, sage grouse, rattlesnakes, and a huge number of raptors.  It has been a really unexpected treat.  After that project ended, I moved back into bag’n and tag’n weeds and surveying.  The most interesting area I surveyed this month was a creek-carved canyon that was on fire in early June.  Over a hundred foot tall walls with blackened earth and vegetation made for an awesome hike through.  I’ve also been helping construct a shade shelter  these last few days of August — hopefully I’ll have some pictures of it to post next time.  On a personal note, I climbed my first mountain peak (going for a 14er this weekend!), started to harvest fruit and veggies from my garden, went fly fishing for the first time and I’m hooked (….I love puns….), had a birthday, and brewed my 3^rd batch of beer (brown ale, pumpkin ale, and now a stout!).  I’d say that it was a pretty successful month professionally and personally and I am really looking forward for the next one.

-Nate T.

To have the sense of knowing when to make a seed collection after scouting a site can be somewhat difficult – to say the least.  We spend time keeping an eye on a certain species, becoming connected to the species and eager to see the fruits ripen so we can begin our collection.  I became very excited about our  long anticipated collection of Ribes cereum.  We traveled to the site ready to start a collection  and discovered the first cluster of shrubs were completely and entirely barren. I was in awe and disbelief that almost one week ago the shrubs were loaded with berries – in every direction we had looked there were berry filled shrubs.  Immediately, we searched the whole park in hopes of finding a few shrubs with enough fruits to still make a great collection.

Every single Ribes cereum shrub was without a single berry.  There are many deer, elk, bears, and other animals found throughout this park. Our thoughts are the animals must be eating these ripe red berries, which must be a nice change to their diet.  It’s good to know that even though it’s been a very hot and dry summer, the animals are finding enough to eat!

Although we missed this opportunity to make a collection of this species for this year, we are on a roll, increasing our number of collections for the year.  Berries are a favorite collection, not only for CLM interns, but for wildlife as well. Collecting berries for Seeds of Success is so much fun! I can’t wait until we find our next berry patch! Below are a few of my favorite collections so far this year.

Ribes cereum with fruits still present.

Ribes cereum fruits

These are the most “magical” of berries we have collected thus far. Common name for this plant species is roughfruit fairybells.

Surprisingly these fruits are so very light and airy….almost like a “fairy” 

Beautiful deer watching us very closely.

Deer in Strawberry Area near Fraser River — they were quite beautiful and did not seem too timid to pose for the camera.

Oh Happy Day!

Darnisha Coverson

BLM Colorado State Office

Hello again,

First of all, I am sorry to those who have sent me messages that I have not replied. I do not even know how.

This is only my second post and so much has happened since the first. It would take pages to explain so I will be brief. Rose and I have busted out the seed collections and are at 42 collections with 4 specimens vouchered; we are now slowing down. The field season is sadly drawing to a close, but we are happy that we’re no longer rushing about to collect seeds and voucher specimens on time. We are so caught up on our collections and data that we are finding other things to do. Yesterday, we started mounting our ~200 voucher specimens for the Herbarium we are creating in the Lander Field Office. That was fun. Arts and crafts time!

There is still alot of ArcMap work to be done – polygons to draw, data to organize so that it can be accessible to others in the office, etc. We have scheduled a meeting with the GIS specialist in the office to learn how to go about doing this. Sounds like I know what October and November looks like!

I have gotten a chance to do some different work around the area. A few weeks ago I helped out the Fish and Game department in Lander during their five year fish population assessment of the Sweetwater River. To do this we electroshocked a section of the river to stun the fish so they were easy to spot and catch with a net. At the end of the run, we weighed, measured, and identified the fish to species. Although it was a little un-nerving to be standing in water (with rubber waders on) while sending out an electrical current, we had a blast. The Fish and Game guys are good people, and it was nice to get my hands messy with some wildlife.

This week I am helping out a PHD student from the University of Wyoming. He is doing a sage grouse study and I will be helping him pull all-nighters spotlighting, catching, and radio collaring sagegrouse. I am excited to be a part of someone’s graduate study and to gain some wisdom and inspiration.

Well, I will stop here. Cheers to all of you beautiful CLM interns and I hope your summers have been fabulous!

Sincerely,

Rebecca Stern

 As my internship and summer have progressed here in Lakeview, OR, our work has evolved from special status species surveying to post- fire vegetation monitoring and seed collecting. While both types of recent projects have been interesting to work on, I especially enjoyed fire plot monitoring. The plots we visited varied (sometimes dramatically so) between each other, both pre-burn and post-burn. We went to sites in lava fields and atop grassy and shrubby ridges and saw invasives dominate some plots and natives flourish in others. Monitoring sometimes involved looking at 100 nested plots around a 100 meter transect, but I like how the repetitive nature of the plots forced me to learn some of our grasses better. In such a dry year, we have had to find somewhat alternative characteristics to confirm identification: the way the leaves feel between our fingers (indicating hairs present or not), what the skeleton of an inflorescence looks like post-seed dispersal, or how grasses species compared to each other in a given area. All of this repetitive thinking and comparing of grass field characteristics made me better understand and appreciate the nuances of our grasses.

Seed collecting has dominated our time in recent weeks, in particular the collecting of Cercocarpus ledifolius var. intercedens (curl-leaf mountain mahogany). Our mentor told us to collect 50lbs of this seed for both Seeds of Success and future fire rehabilitation work in Lakeview. Yes, 50 pounds of seed!  For those not familiar with this seed, the best comparison I can think of is a golden feather that sheds tiny fiberglass-like hairs. It is quite a beautiful seed, with many forming curly-cues that twist out Dr. Seuss-style from the branches. While the best trees to collect from had many seeds in easy-to-grab clumps, grabbing these clumps often caused clouds of the tiny gold hairs to be released and float onto our faces and bodies.  Itchiness would ensue wherever skin was exposed and/or clothing was rubbing against our bodies.  The hot weather, smoky air (from a nearby wildfire), and sometimes windy days, contributed to a not-so-pleasant environment to work in.  I think that our crew became adept at patience and meditation, given the amount of time we had to simply think while performing the rote task at hand.  In addition to integrating itself into my clothes and skin, the seed also integrated itself into my consciousness, and I began seeing it behind closed eyes and in my dreams.  Two weeks of collecting resulted in tens of thousands of seeds but probably less than 10lbs in weight. Our mentor told us at this point that he had been facetious when declaring our 50lb goal.  While I won’t miss the itchiness of the mountain mahogany seed, I will miss seeing the morning sun causing the golden feathery trees to seemingly glow.

Curl-leaf mountain mahogany seeds.

In addtion to the valuable career experience gained through the Chicago Botanic Garden’s Conservation and Land Management Internship (CLM) program, there are plenty of good times to be had as a CLM intern! Within a BLM field office, it is likely that any one employee will work with a variety of BLM specialists. (Personally, I have worked with the botanist, wildlife biologist, archeologist, recreation director and planners, engineer, fire/fuels management officers, realty/land specialists, public relations, and IT personnel.) Furthermore, civil servants (such as BLM employees) and careers in conservation and land management involve interacting with individuals and groups from the public in multiple ways: educating students, promoting conservation as both a career option and an opportunity for public participation, guiding field trips, facilitating volunteer activities, administering public meetings, and working with neighbors to protect their property and ours.

PUBLIC MEETINGS. Monthly public meetings were held by our BLM office to engage the public in a community-based planning process to develop recommendations for a management plan for land recently acquired by the BLM. Public meetings are one way for government agencies and organizations to work alongside the public whom they serve. It provides a place where civil servants can inform, educate, listen to, and discuss ideas, issues and concerns regarding projects with the interested members of public whom the project may affect.

Community-based planning for the development of a management plan for a new land acquisition

HIGH SCHOOL CAREER FAIRS. Many high school students do not know which career they plan to pursue; this is precisely why attending high school career fairs to present conservation and land management as a career option is an excellent idea. As a representative of the BLM (which many high school students have not heard of) and of the Conservation and Land Management Internship program through the Chicago Botanic Garden, I have had the privilege of participating at two high school career fairs to promote conservation and land management as a possible career path. Although this did not seem to be on the radar for a lot of students, we were able to engage in conservation about what we do and the career possibilities with some fantastic students who did express interest. We actually have one high school student who already volunteers with us when he is available and have met another student at a career fair who expressed interest in joining us as a volunteer in the near future.

Serving as representatives for the BLM, Pine Hill Preserve, and the CLM Internship program

VOLUNTEER WORK DAYS. I have been granted the privilege of organizing and facilitating a monthly volunteer work event for a local group. Despite the small numbers of participatants, their time and effort have been critical in helping us accomplish important work at Pine Hill Preserve. For instance, they assisted with the installation of jute matting and straw wattles along a newly constructed trail; this was completed shortly before the onset of the rainy season. They have also contributed to conservation and land management efforts at the Pine Hill Preserve by collecting seeds, planting propagated plants of one of the rare species in the Preserve, pulling yellow star thistle, installing posts and signs, and picking up trash; they also participated in staining bridges at a nature area owned by the BLM.

Planting propagated Pine Hill ceanothus at Pine Hill Preserve as part of a volunteer work day

FIELD TRIPS. What better way to spend a beautiful spring day than to walk through a natural area with others who possess the same passion for nature as you! Observing birds by sight and sound, identifying the species of wildflowers making their showy appearance, and photographing the scene, from the broad landscapes to the minute details that catch one’s eye…even the guide and other participating naturalist-type experts typically enjoy and appreciate learning from others in the touring party and sharing the experience with fellow nature-lovers. But I also enjoy field trips in which individuals, particularly young kids to teens, truly encounter nature firsthand for the first time, engaging multiple senses to learn about and experience wildlife habitat that has not been significantly altered or disturbed nor is regularly manicured…sometimes the initial awareness of nature up close can be a transforming moment when one realizes the plethora of mysteries, the intricacies of the smallest details, the coordination of countless interactions, the adaptations that allow unique situations of survival, or the greatness of how it all continues to function as one ultimate system.

Looking at blooming wildflowers and rare plants at the Pine Hill Preserve

On the sagebrush steppe or the Eastern Cascade foothills. Past the old farmhouse, near the spring, in the burned area, or on an ancient basalt flow. Seed collecting. I drive slow, both because the BLM road I am on seems to have more rocks in it than around it, and because I am intently focused on finding seeds to collect. Something catches my eye and I step on the brakes. I jump out of the truck and examine a plant, or remnant of a plant. Perhaps it is something I scouted out months before when it was in flower, before the landscape dried into shades of brown. A dehisced skeleton of a plant, but still offering a seedhead. I eagerly grab it, and use my fingernails or a knife to break open the seed head, capsule, silique, achene, spikelet, follicle, schizocarp or pod. I assess whether the seeds are ready. Too green and soft means its not ready yet. Some fruits may have a small hole in them and a worm rather than a seed, in which case I need to cut open more seeds to determine if they are all like that. If the seeds are dry and hard, they are ready. Then I look up at the population. Are there enough plants to collect from? If so, have they produced enough fruits? I once observed, on a quiet lunch break, a chipmunk running around grabbing lupine stalks with its tiny hands and bending the pods into its mouth, which likely expains why we haven’t been able to find many lupine pods despite its abundant flowers. How many seeds are in each seed head or fruit? Simple math equations run through my head as I keep in mind that our collection target is at least 10,000 seeds and only twenty percent of a population can be taken. If everything looks good, I get a bag and start collecting. If there are 100 seeds per seed head, it may take a matter of minutes, but sometimes there are only several seeds per fruit and it takes hours.

Despite the drought, my field partner and I have been able to make over twenty collections thus far. We have sought out the higher elevations and wetter areas of our field office. Plants also have staggered blooming and fruiting times, meaning that in one trip we may collect seed from an early flowering species and collect an herbarium specimen from a later flowering one. As we get into late August I can tell that the collections will get more and more sparse.

I often think about where the seed that we collect will go. Collection is the beginning of a long process. After being cleaned and sorted, it may end up in a seed bank. Or it may be grown out in fields, producing thousands more. Lately it has been over 90 degrees every day, and large fires are raging all around Alturas, blanketing the area in thick smoke. There will likely be a huge demand for seed in the coming years to stabilize slopes and out compete weeds in the vast areas of the West that have burned this season. 

The Pit River canyon. Many of our collections have been from this area of our field office.

We startled some wild horses on a seed collecting trip.

Collecting a sedge at a spring at Yankee Jim ranch.

Joe Broberg

BLM Botany Intern

Alturas, CA