November 25, 2013

Las Cruces, NM

Greetings!  So much has changed in the past month both in the office and out.  For one thing, it snowed here this past weekend!  As interns in Las Cruces, we have a housing agreement with the BLM.  In exchange for government housing, we have the responsibility of monitoring the trails at Dripping Springs Natural Area two weekend days each month.  Fulfilling this duty yesterday was an absolute pleasure.  As a native Chicagoan, I shouldn’t be so awestruck by snow, but witnessing fresh snowfall in the mountains of New Mexico was stunning.

This weekend’s snow was also a reality check.  For the most part, life in Las Cruces has felt a lot like an extended summer vacation.  Between the consistently sunny weather and my remote living situation (no TV or internet at our house), I feel pretty separated from reality.  I keep anticipating September weather typical of New England, indicating its time to pack my bags and head back to school.  The snow this weekend has set me straight.  My undergraduate years are behind me for good, and the CLM internship has been the perfect jump start to life in the real world.

Pictures from my snowy hike up to Dripping Springs

We have also experienced several changes at the office.  Seed collection season is essentially over, and in its stead, we have helped out with several monitoring projects, including one involving the sand pricklypear cactus (Opunita arenaria).  Because it has a relatively narrow habitat range limited by sandy soils, and it is highly susceptible to changing environmental conditions (e.g. water availability, winter temperatures) and herbivory, the sand pricklypear is listed as a rare plant species in the state of New Mexico.  Several years ago, local officials announced plans of constructing a dam and flood retention pond on a site occupied by a sand pricklypear population.  BLM agreed to the proposal under the condition that the sand pricklypears within the construction site would be transplanted to a new location.  Furthermore, all the transplanted individuals had to be caged in order to minimize herbivory during the plants’ initial establishment.  A couple weeks ago, Kate and I had the opportunity to monitor the success of the sand pricklypear transplant project, and, ultimately, we wrote a comprehensive report summarizes our findings.  I absolutely loved working on this project. I have been quite nostalgic about my college days, and it felt great to write an analytical paper again (did I really just admit that I miss paper-writing?).

One of the caged, transplanted sand pricklypears (Opuntia arenaria) from our monitoring project

Last week, we also worked on an oil well pad restoration project outside Roswell, NM (fun fact: the site we worked at was where Felix Baumgartner landed after his famous space jump).  The ultimate goal of this project has to re-vegetate the area using native plant materials in order to provide suitable habitat for the lesser prairie chicken.  However, the deep sandy soils characteristic of the region are extremely difficult to re-vegetate, so our mentor, Mike Howard, used this project as an opportunity to experiment with restoration techniques.  Sand bluestem (Andropogon hallii) was planted throughout the 3 acre well pad at different pot depths.  While deeper pots are known to facilitate plant establishment, they are also more expensive ( $15 per pot), and Mike wanted to determine if there was a cheaper solution that had a comparable success rate.

Sand bluestem restoration monitoring project outside Roswell, NM

– Elisabeth Ward

This week marks the end of my internship with SOS/CLM. I am tying up my paperwork. My seeds are at the Bend Seed Extractory and my herbarium specimens will be glued and mailed by Wednesday.

Unlike many of the interns with CLM this summer I might be considered in the autumn of my life. With two degrees under my belt and a few grey hairs coloring my head, I am looking at this summer as a building block to my next level of interest. While many of you are starting your careers, I am building on the last one as I consider a B.S. in botany or ecology to add to my BA and MA.
I truly, madly enjoyed every day of my time in the field looking at new landscapes and cementing my appreciations of the Central Oregon landscape. My counsel to those of you starting your careers is to look at the ecological perspective, and combine your botany with another science or comprehensive ecosystem perspective. Be flexible and versatile. Be persistent. The landscape will be there. It is a stark landscape filled with a sense of possibility.

The last collection.

vistas

Spacious

Mysterious

Filled with Solitude

Robin Snyder

2013 SOS/CLM Intern

Prineville District  Office, BLM

Prineville Oregon

November has been wonderful! Finally, the time I’d been waiting for all summer has come! At last, we started planting some of those beautiful native plants that we had been tending to all summer! This has also been the month of giving thanks and give thanks for this opportunity and for the BLM. It gives me such comfort knowing that BLM and other organizations dedicate themselves to nurturing the earth and giving back to it. Collectively, we all help to make this world a better place for the animals and our future generations.
I am also thankful for the holidays that we interns were given, because of it, I was able to have my family come visit.  Together, we were able to go visit family in Oregon as well! I am really excited for the month to come, but it is also a bit sad because the final days of my internship are near. Nonetheless, I look forward to this next month and plan contribute as much as I can before my time is over.

Hello all!

I can’t even begin to describe all the things I’ve learned from my experience in Susanville. But I can tell you that I’m a different person than the one who arrived in June. I had no idea what to expect when I was told I would be working in Northern California. I had little knowledge of western plants. I knew very little about BLM and public lands. And I knew no one in northern California. All of that changed when I arrived at the ELFO and met some wonderful friends who taught me many things.

Now that my time has ended, I reflect on my experience and can’t help but smile remembering all the memories I made. Here are just a few: long bouncy rides in the jeep around the field office, collecting seed on top of mountains, searching for rare plants in Sierra Valley, meeting and working with great people, and having lunch in some of the best spaces. All of the once unknown “fears” have formed into one of the greatest experiences in my life. There were so many times over the last six months I couldn’t believe what I was doing was part of my job. Getting to adventure in all of these beautiful places was a major highlight. Fieldwork has been a great experience and I hope to keep doing it as my career advances. One of the many things I’ll take away from this experience is to do the work you love and keep searching and adventuring until you find it. We all have different skills to contribute in order to get the job done. I will always remember my time spent at the ELFO in Susanville, California. Thanks to Deb (my partner in crime), my wonderful mentor, and all my friends at the ELFO. It’s been so awesome! I can’t wait for my next chapter and the adventures ahead!

All the best.

Carrie, Eagle Lake Field Office

The field season is anything but over here in southeast Arizona. Throughout October and November our crew has been working on a variety of field projects.

Green sunfish removal from Horse Camp Canyon has finally been completed! This is a big success for Heidi Blasius and the BLM office. Removal from this side canyon began in 2009. Horse Camp Canyon is the only known source of green sunfish into Aravaipa Creek. Green sunfish are piscivorous and eat the young of the native fish that live in Aravaipa Creek. I was an integral part of the 2013 removal efforts. I camped with a Southwestern Conservation Corp crew at the west entrance into Aravaipa Canyon for a week in September. We hiked 80 nets into Horse Camp Canyon (HCC), a 5 mile hike from the west entrance. Each day we hiked to the site, set nets, seined, and dip netted, and then hiked out. What a week! Then in October another SCC crew worked at HCC for us. The four pools in HCC were finally deemed clean of green sunfish on 10/30/2013. We removed close to 2,000 green sunfish in 2013! I was given the honor of presenting the results of the non-native removal efforts in HCC at the annual Desert Fishes Council conference. I spent five days in Flagstaff attending the meeting. My presentation went well, despite my nerves. It was great practice in my oral presentation skills as well as data preparation and analysis.

  Myself with an SCC crew after a week working in Horse Camp canyon.

Juvenile Sonoran Mud Turtle

Janyne Little pulling nets in Horse Camp Canyon.

Lowland Leopard frogs in Horse Camp Canyon

 Entry into Horse Camp Canyon from Aravaipa Creek.

Once we returned from the furlough, SOS collections were of high priority. The shutdown occurred just as seeds were ripening in this area.  Recognizing the time constrains of our collection season, our crew had several collection trips each week, as well as collecting on the weekends. Our team has made 49 collections and we still may be able to accumulate more through the end of November and into early December.

 All and all I have thoroughly enjoyed our collection season. Three new interns have started under my mentor over the last couple months. It is great to have some new friends in the area. We have explored new areas of the field office and learned a magnitude of information about native plants. There is no better way to learn the local flora then to be out in it actively identifying things. We have taken several trips with Steven Buckley, a botanist for the NPS. He is extremely knowledgeable of the flora in this area and helped our SOS collection team in correctly identifying plants for collection. He also instructed us in the creation of seed balls. We made over 4,000 seed balls one afternoon that will be used in restoration efforts on the Buenes Aires National Wildlife Refuge. The Buenes Aires National Wildlife Refuge is a beautiful area. Steve accompanied us to Brown Canyon, an area closed to the public. The Canyon was lush and diverse. My favorite plant of the day was Coral Bean. The bright red color of the beans is a message to beware of the lethal poison contained within.

View of Baboquivari Peak from Brown Canyon.

 Seed balls containing native seeds collected in Buenes Aires National Wildlife Refuge

Myself, Andrew Johnson, and Janyne Little after our plant identification hike with Steve Buckley.

 Coral Bean in Brown Canyon

The Aravaipa Creek Bi-annual monitoring was a highlight of our fall field season. Aravaipa creek is home to 7 native species, two of which are federally endangered. The natives include the Longfin dace, Agosia chrysogaster, Speckled dace, Rhinichythys osculus, Spike dace, Meda fulgida, Desert sucker, Catostomus clarkii, Sonoran Sucker, Catostomus insignis, Loach minnow, Tiaroga cobitis, and the Roundtail chub, Gila robusta. Loach minnow and spikedace are the two that are listed. There are very few streams in the southwest that can boost of having this many native fishes. It was my first time identiying several of these species, and really a treat to see the endangered populations doing well. The monitoring took place at 8 different 200 m sites. Each site was seined the entire length, and all the fish were identified and counted.

Spikedace Loach minnow Modified mouth of a Desert Sucker

 Sorting fish from a seine haul

Myself recording data

 Seining

It has been a great couple of months. I greatly enjoy the extended field season in Arizona. It’s November and we are still able to perform non-native removal in Bonita Creek (although this results in frozen fingers). I’m looking forward to holiday season and visiting Arkansas for a couple weeks. I hope that all other CLM interns and CBG staff also enjoy lovely holidays.

-Rosalee Reese

For my final blog post, I’d mainly like to thank the people who have helped to expand my knowledge and experience of practicing conservation and land management in the field. Being a part of the interaction between oil and gas development companies and government agencies was extremely fascinating. I’m proud to have played a part in the maintenance of our natural resources and look forward to doing so again in the future.

With the CLM internship under my belt, I look forward to applying what I have learned in my future endeavors.

As many people finish up their internships, I feel extremely lucky to be just starting my second internship.  After a summer of working for a private company carrying out vegetation surveys on oil and gas pads all over the west, I am thrilled to be a CLM intern once again!  My first internship was in northeast California at the Eagle Lake Field Office, and I am now working out of the Safford Field Office in southeast Arizona.  I am very grateful for a winter field position—in a warm environment too!  My Arizona internship has been quite a bit different from the internship I completed in California.  However, one thing remains the same: the internship continues to provide amazing opportunities to grow and learn every day.

During my first week, I was thrown right into fish field work.  Having a botany background, this was new and exciting for me.  I helped with a native fish survey of Araviapa Creek, one of the healthiest water systems in Arizona.  The creek flows through the beautiful Aravaipa Canyon and provides habitat for several native fish species, including a few endangered species.  I also assisted with non-native fish removal from Horse Camp Canyon, one of the side canyons of Araviapa Canyon.  The removal of non-native green sunfish from the canyon has been in progress since 2010, and we believe that we have actually successfully eradicated the species from the canyon this year.

Aside from fish work, we have been scampering to finish up seed collections.  Seeds are dropping quickly as temperatures decrease.  Although most of my field experience is in the Great Basin, I am quickly becoming acquainted with the plants in the area, especially the ones that inflict the most pain.  It seems that every plant around here is trying to kill you.  My appreciation for sage brush has increased dramatically in the past month after hiking through mesquite, acacia, mimosa, and cactus.  At the end of the day, though, I just can’t stay angry with the majestic saguaro.

Another project we had the chance to be a part of involves a unique restoration technique that has proved successful in desert environments.  At Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge, we helped make seed balls for a prairie restoration at the refuge.  The large marble-sized seed balls consist of clay, aggregate (sand/compost), and seed in about a 5:3:1 ratio.  The hardened clay gives the seeds protection from predation, as animals are unable to penetrate the rock hard seed ball.  The structure also ensures that the seeds will not germinate until there is an adequate amount of water, since it takes monsoon rains to wet the clay enough for the ball to fall apart.  This clever technique may help bring native grasses back to the historically overgrazed areas in the refuge.

Making Seed Balls at Buenos Aires NWR

Brown Canyon

There are many other exciting projects in the works so stay tuned!

Janyne Little
Safford, AZ

Fall is almost over in Nevada. Snow is covering the Sierra’s and the end of the internship is drawing near. But there is still seed to be had! Seed collecting has taken a backseat throughout much of the year. Shifting office priorities and the furlough slowed us down significantly. But over the past month we have been able to find time and make some really good collections. Many species collection windows have closed but out in the desert the chenopods are ripe for the picking. Reaching the 10,000 seed minimum is easy when you can get 500 Atriplex torreyi seeds in one grab. There is something very satisfying about collecting Atriplex seeds. I can’t quite describe it but I’m sure some of you fellow seed collectors can relate. Anyway, I guess will finish up with some pictures. (Eastern side of the Pine Nut Mountians & Atriplex confertafolia) Have a happy Thanksgiving!

My internship in Kemmerer, Wyoming is coming to a close. All in all, it has been a very productive summer and fall. I am so thankful that I got to experience the work of a professional wildlife biologist. Even though paperwork is everyone’s least favorite part of the job, I really appreciated that my mentor taught me how to complete some of it. This will be very important in my career.

This internship has been integral in helping me narrow down what I want to do for graduate school and the rest of my life. Even though the funding prospects are not promising, I am getting a lot of positive responses about my field work and qualifications for graduate school. I am depending heavily on my field work and work with a government agency as the unique factors that will set my application apart.

I will always remember this experience and the memories I have made here. Thank you to my mentor, all the people in the office, and the CLM program for making this possible!

In the last few weeks I’ve come to realize that my time at the BLM is almost up.  I find myself looking at the calendar and ticking off the remaining work weeks on one hand. How did that happen? Wasn’t it November 1^st, like, yesterday?

No doubt the time has sped by due to some of the interesting projects I’ve worked on in the last month.  One experience in particular led me to ponder some basic questions about botany, as well as its future as a field in the United States.  Eli and I were lucky enough to attend the New Mexico Rare Plants Technical Council Meeting at the Rio Grande Botanic Garden in Albuquerque earlier this month.   We were representing our mentor, the New Mexico State Botanist, who (literally) holds the key to the BLM’s Sensitive Species list for New Mexico.  The attendees were a small, passionate group of professionals from various backgrounds: academia (UNM and NMSU), government (Forest Service and Fish and Wildlife), and private business.

Like the couple other botany events I’ve been to in New Mexico, almost everyone was over fifty.  I don’t say this to disparage, I mention this only to draw light to an alarming theme.  Younger generations are largely absent from the plant sciences and botany.  Within the last few years, numerous articles have chronicled the demise of botany at universities or the merging of plant science within the larger disciplines of ecology or biology.  I’m not sure if youth just aren’t interested in botany because of our culture’s preoccupation with technology, convenience, and the artificial or if this lack of interest stems from a rift in early education where these passions should be cultivated.  I’m inclined to think (and hope) that it’s the latter because then it’s an easier issue to solve.  Even at this meeting, the issue was acknowledged – people are needed to collect the retiring generation’s institutional and local knowledge before it’s too late.

Ok- that was a brief tangent- onto the pressing meeting issues!  Two subjects held the majority of the meeting floor- instituting a new ranking system for rare plants and deciding upon a hybrid policy for the Council.

In regards to the ranking system, it is very difficult to give native plants a rarity ranking because, well, they are rare.  Often little is known about a species and no documentation exists.  Categories that must be considered for ranking are range extent, population size, population trends, threat impacts, and more.  Natural Heritage New Mexico is a division of the University of New Mexico that maintains a rare species database that uses a species ranking calculator.  The Technical Council decided to do a pilot project and utilize the calculator on 30 well-documented rare species to see how accurate or useful such technology would be.  The “pros” of a calculator are that the process is data-driven (less human opinion) and that input factors are documented.  The “cons” of the tool are that populating all the categories is a lengthy process and unknown factors could skew the calculated outcome.  In my personal opinion, I’m confident that the calculator will be useful and will help standardize the ranking process among larger areas because different states and agencies also use a similar system.

Hybrid policy- now this was a point of contention in the group.  What constitutes a hybrid? At what point does a hybrid constitute its own species?  However simple this questions appears at first glance- it’s not, think about it more.  Say two species cross and create a hybrid.  Ok, this is just one weird plant, no biggie.  But what if this happens ten more times throughout the population? Ok, still not a problem- you might say- those hybrids are spread throughout the population and probably won’t pass along their unique genetic makeup.   But THEN, what if all of these hybrids crop up in the same area and being reproducing primarily with each other? It’s now a hybrid swarm, and if you decide to call the population a new species haven’t you got a new rare plant on your hands?  Can every hybrid swarm be considered rare?  Ok, ok, that’s a lot of questions but hopefully you see what I’m getting at.  It’s difficult to define when a hybrid becomes a distinct species, and then it’s difficult to decide if it should be protected or not.  At the meeting, someone raised a great point- looking at a plant is simply looking at an evolutionary snapshot whose endpoint we cannot see.  Therefore, we must reference whatever data has been published and work on a case by case basis as hybrids are brought for review.  The council generally agreed that a hybrid is a species if it is reproductively independent from its parents, but they would only acknowledge a new species if someone had published the data to support it.

Since my post has already passed the maximum length that can hold my reader’s attention span- I’ll only address one more exciting event.  (Although many of you might not think this qualifies as exciting… I mean KEEP READING THIS IS SOME THRILLING STUFF).  A soil scientist from NRCS came to the office a couple of weeks ago and gave a tutorial on “Creating Soil-Based Thematic Maps and Reports Using Soil Data Viewer”. I was at first, skeptical, of how much I might get out of this training but I was mistaken.  The speaker introduced us to an alternative to Web Soil Survey (an online soil data database that is notoriously slow- cue painful memories of late night studying for Soil Science in college).  Soil Data Viewer is faster, easier to navigate, more informative, and did I mention faster?  There are so many different attributes you can explore and the program can rank these attributes of the various soils in an area and spit out a fantastic report.  So you want to know what areas in Doña Ana County have the best soils for sinking fence posts? Done. Want to know which areas have vegetation cover best suited for cattle ranching? Done.  This resource could be useful to a vast majority of government and private agencies concerned with land management and other fields.  Hopefully, it will be used for improving our knowledge and appropriate use of different landscapes- in addition to the entertainment value of the pretty, vividly colored maps that I use it for.

Oh, and one last thing – IT SNOWED! I’m from Sacramento, CA and have never woken up and seen snow outside.  Needless to say I was pretty excited.  Pictures galore!

Cheers,

Kate