Another month has come and gone here in Escalante, Utah. The first two things that come to mind are: passing the halfway point of my internship (good and bad) and the monsoon season. The latter is what the locals here call the rainy season. It is very typical for it during this season to be warm and cloudless in the morning. But by the afternoon, thunder storming and heavy rains, especially at the higher elevations. This can make planning our day out tricky sometimes. We came across our first flash flood last week, which was exciting. We must have missed it by minutes because after we turned around I saw in the distance the head of the flood and quickly ran over to watch it rumble by. It was very impressive but slower moving than I had expected.
As for being halfway done with the internship, I feel we have come a long way. We have learned a fair amount about the area in southern Utah, experienced many aspects of seed collecting, and over-come just about all the obstacles we have come across. Speaking of coming across, we saw our second bear not long ago. This time it was only a couple miles outside of town, which is rare, sauntering across the scrubland as we were driving by. It wasn’t exceptionally large but it did have a nice blonde color to it.

We are currently waiting on several populations to ripen at the moment. During the time that we are not monitoring these populations, we are mainly exploring new areas of the monument for plant populations we have not located yet. This has allowed us to see a good deal of the monument, which I am very grateful for.
Lastly, September is the last big month for tourism in these parts. That means we have to get our fill of restaurant food and TV (we don’t have cable) before everything closes up for the fall/winter. I have to say, I am looking forward to the cooler weather though.

The coolest thing I’ve been involved with the last month is helping UT-Tyler biologist Dr. Neil Ford with his mussel surveys on the Neches River. These surveys are part of the ongoing All-Taxa Biodiversity Inventory at Big Thicket NP. 50% of my time as an intern has been helping the ATBI researchers in the field, the other 50% has been spent in the office mapping their findings. Helping out with the ‘Mussel Guys’ has been by far my favorite field activity. A typical day of musseling involves taking an outboard motor fishing boat with a small crew down the river and jumping in the water at 5-6 different locations to comb the bottom of the river with our hands looking for mussels. I had no idea how much mussel diversity exists at the bottom of a river. It’s like a relaxing float trip down the river, only you’re doing science along the way!

The big sucker!

Sometimes when you travel down dirt roads for a little more than an hour, it can start to make you wonder whether or not you’re ever going to come out. This past week, we went into the deep heart of the Modoc National Forest in northern California in search of sucker species to see how far up the stream system they travel and can be found.

This past week was also my first chance to be crew lead as I had been designated crew lead for the shortnose and lost river sucker. I really enjoyed taking on the responsibility as lead and being able to make my own decisions on the project with the help of my fellow coworkers and being responsible for all aspects of the project. I feel that I really thrive when I am given responsibility and freedom to make my own decisions and choices in the field because I feel that it really aids in my problem-solving abilities and my performance.

Tuesday morning we set out with all of our electroshocking gear to sections of a steam upriver to a reservoir where we knew suckers were present. The river mostly consisted of small sections of flow and larger sections of pools. We concentrated on shocking the pools since that was where the suckers would most likely be. At first we caught a lot of dace and green sunfish (which are beautiful looking by the way) for the first couple of pools. When we arrived at the third pool though we caught our first small sucker which we photographed, weighed, measured and PIT tagged! A couple of pools later, the water started getting deeper and it was getting harder to shock because the fish could swim away more easily. Then, suddenly, while shocking in the middle of the pool, a huge fish jumped up! We missed it the first time and then it jumped up again and we caught it! Lo and behold it was a large sucker! We were all so excited to have found such a big sucker so far upstream! After that, we continued to find some suckers in different sections of the streams, so the week of surveying was a success!

It was also a success because the area hasn’t been surveyed for suckers in about 20-30 years. Therefore, our findings could hold significance for the scientific community and for endangered sucker restoration/conservation! The lead biologist on suckers here at the office who I am working with is actually going to have me write a manuscript on our findings which may be published! I never expected that to be a possibility this summer, but I am sure glad to have it!

Until next time,

Kaitlyn Farrar

Dace

Green sunfish

I remember, back in middle school, how the summers used to lazily drift by. Fall, winter and spring were all terrifically busy, but for those few warm months I had all the time in the world and it seemed like forever (not in a bad way) until the seasons turned. Now, out of college, my experience is reversed. The warm season is full to the brim with work, traveling and of course lots of outdoor adventures, while the winter months can be almost lackadaisical. I have to say though, that this summer may have gone by the fastest out of any so far! As I look out over the Bodie Hills, richly colored with turning aspen, it seems like only a few days ago that those same hills were still white with patches of snow. The sage grouse chicks that weren’t even eggs when I arrived are now fully grown, and plants that I couldn’t ID for lack of flowers in the early spring shed their last seeds months ago. Its pretty crazy, but I can’t complain – life flies when you’re  having fun.

That’s right, even a job can be fun! While I can’t say I will miss the miles of bumpy roads, some tedious surveys and the occasional day where I didn’t bring enough water for the heat, I have genuinely enjoyed my CLM experience here in Bishop. My co-intern Leah, mentor Martin and all of the rest of the BLM staff were truly fantastic and I feel pretty lucky that I got to spend my summer here with them. Every day is spent somewhere beautiful and I do feel that the work the BLM does here is improving the prospects for the area’s flora and fauna, as well as recreational opportunities.

It hasn’t been all fun and games though, I’ve learned to use oodles of new monitoring techniques, how to find sage grouse with radio-telemetry and all about seed collection from start to finish. I’ve also learned a ton about the ecology of the great basin, how to reverse an outlandishly huge truck a mile and a half down a narrow dirt road, and maybe, just maybe, I’ve learned a little about myself. I know that I like being outside, and dislike driving to get there. I know that I can ID plants better than most folks, but have no interest in becoming a professional taxonomist or anyone who specializes in identifying sagebrush. I also know that while the desert sagebrush landscape and the white granite of the eastern Sierra are both beautiful, my heart is tied to green trees and rivers that eventually reach the ocean.

What I don’t quite know still is what exactly I want to do with my life. Working for the BLM has made me more aware of the upsides and downside of a career with a government agency, but I don’t know that the experience has pushed me in one direction or the other. I’d like to find a graduate program in ecology, but after a summer of exploring dozens of different projects, its hard to picture tethering myself to one very specific corner of research. I guess we’ll have to wait and see how the fall goes. I have a feeling that with things not traveling at light speed, I’ll have time to organize my head a bit. Fortunately, I’m sure that wherever I end up, this internship will be good preparation, partly because of the skills that I’ve learned, but mostly because of the initiative that I was allowed to take on projects. Its definitely been a growing experience, and even though my 5 months has flown by, it was certainly a good time while it lasted.

Shoutouts to my mentor Martin and co-mentor Sherri for going out of their way to make my internship experience an awesome one. Also shoutouts to Krissa, Wes and the other staff at Chicago Botanic Garden (and the BLM too, for that matter) for being so easy to talk to and, in the CBG’s case, orchestrating a great workshop. Finally, to all my fellow CLM’ers, especially my co-intern Leah, it was truly a pleasure to get to know all of you, at least a little bit. No matter where exactly we end up, I’d be surprised if I didn’t cross paths with at least some of you later in our careers. Hopefully we can go hiking too!

Until next time, happy trails,

Bridger Cohan

Finished up the monitoring for the season with a trip up to Walden, CO to complete the monitoring on Phacelia formosula, a trip out to Silt, CO and up onto the Roan Plateau to a shutdown oil shale site for Penstemon debalis monitoring and finally a trip out to Montrose, CO to complete the monitoring on Eriogonum pelinophilum and establish several new monitoring plots.  The week in Montrose was the week of rain here in Colorado with several systems passing over the state but as always whether rain or shine we were in the field completing the work at hand.  The rain and the Adobe gave us the opportunity to experience mud caked boots which in turn gives you a better perspective of the land as you gain 2-3 inches in height as well as a higher intensity hike to your field site, an enjoyable experience of hiking in the rain and running through mud.   Seed collections haven’t stopped with several more completed at our Leadville location, a couple more completed at the Kremmling location and a revisiting of the Strawberry location near Fraser, CO for a collection of an Orthocarpus luteus and a status report on the Castilleja sp. and Dasiphora fruticosa ssp. floribunda.

Nathan Redecker

Lakewood, CO

Colorado State Office

I can’t believe how fast the time has gone; 5 months are almost up already.  Things have slowed down a bit; we had populations scouted out, but we realized the seeds will take too long to mature.  It is an in between period right now; the early blooming plant seeds are already dehisced and the later blooming plants won’t seed until after we’re gone.  There are only a few populations that we are waiting on, the rest of the time we’re filling with monitoring for rare plants.  We got to read some EAs (Environmental Assessments) in order to know about what areas we were surveying and why.  It was really interesting to learn more about EAs and how they’re used.

I also got to do some rangeland health monitoring this month, backpack herbicide spraying, and I floated down the Green River.  All 3 were great experiences but floating down the river was obviously my favorite!  We were supposed to be checking the campsites down the river to make sure that they were free of trash, debris, and see if they had toilets that they were clean; however, most of the sites had been checked the day before so we basically just got to float!  It was a gorgeous day for the trip too.  The rangeland health monitoring was helpful to me because it allowed me to see how sites were determined to be healthy or not.  Also, we got to see 2 moose that day (my first ever in the wild) so that was pretty exciting. And finally, backpack spraying was backpack spraying…nothing new there, but I was glad I was able to help out the weed guys.

So in the 4 months that we’ve been here our truck had 1 ply tires…which with the roads around here was not very fun.  We ended up having 6 flat tires, which finally encouraged our supervisor to put in a request for better tires.  So with 1 month left we got 6 ply tires! Yay!  Hopefully no more flats for the rest of our internship.

I think that’s pretty much it for the month of August, I’ll leave you with a picture of the moose and floating the river.

The moose we saw while doing rangeland health monitoring

Scouting out which way to go down the rapids

Field season is just about wrapped up here in northeastern Wyoming, and it’s a bittersweet parting. As much as it may have seemed like we were hanging out in an oven replete with stinging insects and UV radiation, working out in the field is always fun and rewarding. There’s nothing quite like standing in the middle of nowhere with a pencil and a yardstick, using your knowledge and experience to play a major role in deciding the future of the land around you. It seems that these parts (at least the BLM parts) are destined to remain sagebrush grasslands for the foreseeable future in order to provide essential habitat for the Sage Grouse.

Yep, I said it. Sage Grouse. You might call it something of a “hot topic” around here. Sage Grouse conservation is a primary concern of our BLM office, a fact that is not lost on land owners in the area. These animals require sagebrush throughout their life cycles, so naturally sagebrush removal is typically not allowed on BLM land. Many land owners have come to terms with this fact, and seem to grudgingly accept the restraints in return for renting BLM grazing pasture at a low cost.

A few, however, are extremely irritated by “sage chicken” conservation efforts, and are not afraid to let people know it! Another touchy subject with some people is the mere mention of being affiliated with the U.S. government, which can lead to some deft maneuvering through racy commentaries on current and past administrations. However, for every cantankerous land owner we come across, we’ve encountered at least three others who are really understanding and willing to help us get to where we need to go and do what we need to do. Negative experiences leave an impression, but the positive has certainly won out throughout the course of my internship.

Alas, now it’s time to start transforming this mound of field data we’ve collected into something that people can use for land management decisions. I’m trying not to think too much about my internship being over halfway complete, and having to eventually leave behind all the cool people I’ve met *sniff*, so I’ll leave that for my next blog. Until next time.

Daniel

So… apparently summer doesn’t last forever in the desert-like environment of Wyoming. Somebody once told me it had to do with the way the Earth tilts and rotates around the Sun, yet, according to some groups, that theory is still up for debate. I’m not here to choose sides, I’d just like to let my devout followers know that the times they are a changin’.

My intern counterpart, Dan (along with some assistance from our friends Nick and Kelley), and I have knocked out around 50 grazing allotments, photo-points, and range improvements. Not too shabby for less than 3 months with a mixture of other projects. Feeling pretty happy about that, the question comes to mind, “what happens when the grass ain’t grass no more?” There is but one answer: DATA ENTRY! I understand you might have just jumped back in your seat. That’s a perfectly normal reaction. Really, its not that bad. You find your own system. Mine is the occasional standing stretch to get some uninhibited blood flow and a monitor break.

While our office time has been looming, we’ve also been involved in some recreation projects. One of which: all four of the interns were invited along to clean fishing access trails and stream beds of trash that may have been forgotten about. This was quite the exciting adventure with mule deer, evidence of mountain lions, large centipedes, and an abundance of aquatic plants. To top the 2 day trip off, we were able to see some of the local caves (or as far as a head lamp could shine down steep, light-less drop-offs). Quite the rewarding trip to know you’re helping clean a beautiful area and see parts of it most locals my not have ventured. This was one of the coolest trips we’ve taken through the recreation program.

With more projects through range, recreation, and possibly other fields, I’m looking forward. For now, back to our collected data.

Goodbye August! It was quite a whirlwind of a month here in Las Cruces. In the last two weeks of the month Eli and I have scurried around the state making seed collections as the plants start to drop everything after the July rains.  Tridens, Erioneuron, Senna, Physaria, Fallugi and more! I absolutely love driving around to new places and walking through the endless grasses and flowers and seeing nothing but sky on the horizon.  I think seed collecting is a serious form of meditation: thoughts are whirring through your head as you begin and you worry about all the things you need to do and suddenly your mind goes deliciously blank as you move from plant to plant.  You are unaware of anything not directly surrounding you – the sun on your neck, the flies buzzing, and the sharpness of gravel on your knees.  Suddenly- you’re done! You didn’t even know that you’ve been stooping over the ground on all fours for the last two hours. (Until you notice the terrific sunburn you’ve got on your back later that night).

This month we also had the pleasure of hanging out with Krissa, Wes, and Sophia from the Chicago Botanic Garden.  We made a day of collecting some cuttings of the rare Lepidospartum plant that the Garden had attempted to propagate about a month ago.  Despite various GPS malfunctions and a significant lack of shade, it was a great afternoon full of story-swapping and great advice.  As a recent college grad, I can definitely say that I’m not exactly sure what I want to do with my life/career so it’s always great to hear from other professionals or friends in interesting fields.

While the CBG team was in Las Cruces we also got to capture hawk moths! “Capture” meaning grabbing the docile beasts in our hands and unrolling their proboscis to swab them for pollen. It was ridiculous! First we settled near a Datura plant (a large, white flower perfect for the hawk moth’s long proboscis). Krissa and Wes unrolled a large white sheet onto a frame and illuminated it with a UV light.  Suddenly, little moths were flocking to the sheet.  “Surely one of these are a hawk moth!” I surmised. Wrong. A hawkmoth finally did show up and it was as large as a small bird.  I had no idea that a moth could get so large, it was quite an eye-opening experience.  Then, someone grabbed the hawkmoth gently while Krissa unrolled its long, shiny “tongue” with a needle and rubbed it with a slice of agar.  Later, she would burn off the agar and look at the pollen left on a slide.  This would tell her what flowers the hawkmoths had recently pollinated.  During all this I suddenly thought – if I think this is cool, everyone else would too!  Imagine how interested you could get kids in science and pollination if you showed them this!? (Or they would at least be excited by standing in the dark with a black light and probably freaking out passing motorists, like I was).

We sadly bid adieu to Krissa, Wes, and Sophia and then embarked on our monumental collection spree.  It’s been quite the month and I’m thoroughly tired and happy.  I can’t believe it’s been over two months! I’m excited for what’s to come and also to shatter our mentor’s goal of 25 seed collections.  Onward!

Peace out,

Kate