We started the week with an orientation and safety meeting. The members of our team included a few Fish and Wildlife employees, a couple private consultants, an ever-cheery volunteer, and ourselves (four CLM interns).  We were here to survey an endangered endemic plant. The largest population of this particular plant, however, happens to be adjacent to where planes take-off and land; which means we were surveying at the Klamath airport! The safety training was a solid morning and covered the meanings of taxiway and runway markings, safety zones and the theory behind them, and was happily interspersed with some good humor. Turns out this particular airport had more than one lost car inadvertently take a wrong turn and end up driving down the runway. Thus adequately briefed, and with hearing protection in hand, we commenced our week of airport surveys for the protected Austragalus applegatei.

Because of impending developments (specifically, a new runway), our surveys aimed to find and accurately map all individuals in previously-identified occupied areas. Our basic method was to walk arms-length apart up and down fields until we encountered plants, then flag each individual in the area (A. applegatei is found in clusters), and continue searching while a GPS team mapped polygons around the cluster. Simple, right? There were a few extenuating circumstances; perpetual wind, rain and even hail, airport escorts, limited time in safety areas, lack of any cover for female surveyors (goodbye modesty, hello air traffic control!), airforce jets taking off and landing right next to us, and coordinating a large group of people from multiple agencies.

One of the best aspects of biological surveys is that same joy as a kid on Easter morning when you wake up to a treasure hunt for coloured eggs, or the thrill in playing pirate and hunting for hidden gold. I used to build my own treasure hunts and try to make my sister follow them (well, maybe I’m a little unusual, because she got bored pretty fast). Walking through the field, flags in hand, there was always a little “hooray!” when one of us found a plant and dutifully planted a flag. We counted over 11,000 plants in those 5 days, and by day 2 the image of A. applegatei was burned in each of our minds. I was afraid to blink too long for fear of missing seeing the little plant. But even after such long days, I still had a little satisfaction with each plant counted. It feels somewhat more significant finding endangered species, versus eggs and chocolate. We also found a pygmy horned lizard, and saw many of the beautiful Melissa’s butterfly that feeds on A. applegatei.

Cheers,
Caitlin Chew
USFWS Klamath Falls