Over the last couple of weeks I have visited 5 separate lakes in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, the purpose of these visits was to conduct surveys for Elodea canadensis. Elodea is a commonly used aquarium plant and is used in many school science lab settings as its leaves are very thin and cells within the plant are easy to view with a microscope. It is thought elodea was originally introduced to lakes in Alaska through dumping of aquariums into lakes. Elodea is capable of asexually reproducing from small cuttings, and due to its brittle nature, even very small parts that break off from the mother plant are able to establish themselves. Float planes transporting the plant on rudders from infested lakes to clean lakes is a growing concern.

Elodea can quickly overtake lakes, blanketing the sun from reaching over native aquatic plants. The entire ecosystem of infested lakes can be greatly impacted in a relatively short period of time. Large changes in aquatic habitat can then create problems for fish species that are relied upon by many people, such as Alaskan salmon.

To ensure Elodea does not enter waterways within the park, we have begun to conduct surveys of lake commonly visited by float planes. This year we went to Grizzly Lake, Copper Lake, Tolsona Lake, Long Lake, and Twin Lakes. Luckily no Elodea specimens were found.

Well…My internship comes to an end in two weeks. I served my five months, then a two month extension at a neighboring BLM office and now in two weeks, I am released of my service. This summer has been an exciting and rewarding experience full of accomplishments and lessons. It seems like so long ago when I first came out here. There was snow on the ground and the morning temperatures were in the teens, then when summer hit the temperature pushed 100 degrees for days at a time and the dryness of the air seemed to suck the moisture right out of my body. Now as fall begins to set in, I have mornings in the low 40s and afternoons in the mid 80s.

It has become very hard to stay focused. My fiancee and I got a new house in Oregon where she will be starting her PhD. I want very much to go join her and start this new stage of life, but I have obligations to finish the work here. I dont mean to sound ungrateful, I think most people would feel similar in this situation. The important thing is that I come into work early, get my work done, and stay positive about what I to do.

I feel like a different person than when I got here. At the beginning of this internship, I left my home and family knowing that before my work was done, I would have a new home in Oregon. In addition to the experiences and character development I have attained in my internship, I have also said goodbye to my life in Ohio. Many of my friends…will I ever see them again? Some I am sure, but others who can say. I feel like while out here, I stepped out of a world of safety and security and into a world of responsibility. While I am ready for it, I have to wait a little longer while I finish this work.

Keep smiling and laughing, stay positive, and remember, you cant go back, once a time passes it is gone so enjoy it and give whatever you are doing your all because afterwards you can only look back at what you did.

Hello CLM folks, I am going to talk a little bit about what we were doing during the past month in the Provo Shrub Sciences Laboratory. Since my first post, I have talked every time about our smell experiments using the e-nose.  Now, after more than 9 months, we finally took a break from Big Sagebrush smells to continue with our experiments using imageJ applied to Big Sagebrush subspecies differentiation. We are still producing data information, but apparently the imageJ seams to be a good way to analyze some physical characteristics of Sagebrush. Additionally, we starting to collaborate with the USGS to analyze some Sagebrush samples using cytometry. There is a lot of desktop work, but eventually in the next week we will be working outside in the field collecting Sagebrush volatile again. We are two weeks from the SER Regional Conference in Redmond, Oregon, which makes me feel a little bit anxious. As always said in my previous posts, my mentor is teaching me many things, but most important to me, he is inviting me to go forward and learn and explore new things.

Thank you all CLM staff for your support.

Hector

Provo, UT

USDA-Forest Service RMRS, Shrub Sciences Laboratory

With only two weeks left in Kremmling, my internship is winding down. It has been an incredible time here and I am quite grateful to have had the opportunity to work here in Colorado.

Since my last post, temperatures have been dropping and the defrost button has become a morning routine. The trees are changing here to a beautiful golden yellow. I do miss the spectacular colors of upstate New York and the Adirondack Mountains, but I’ll give Colorado credit; the golden Aspen contrast with the evergreen is quite the sight as well. Fall here in Colorado meant it was time for a road trip to Moab to see Arches and Canyonlands National Parks. It was still quite hot, but totally worth the trip. Besides that, I travelled down to Montrose to work with Carol Dawson and her CLM intern for a week doing more rare plant monitoring on Eriogonum pelinophilum.

As this internship winds down, I have had time to reflect on the summer and my life trajectory. Coming into this summer I had experience in the NPS and thought I wanted to work as an Ecologist for the NPS. This summer I gained some more perspective on what it might be like to work for the Feds. After seeing how things are run and the amount of science that is done in the BLM, I’m not so sure it is what I want to end up doing. That’s not to say that I didn’t have an amazing internship though. I learned a whole lot about western plants, got to explore beautiful Colorado, and gained tons of valuable experience in several different fields. I recieved valuable training as well which will only help with other jobs in the future. I ended up gaining experience monitoring riparian areas, grasslands, and rare plants. I also spent a lot of time working the GPS and mapping out noxious weeds sites and spring/wells for grazing. One of the best parts of the internship was the fact that I was given so much freedom by my mentor. He really allowed me to take control and go out by myself most days. It’s nice to be given responsibility and be trusted to get things done. Another great part of the internship was the fact that I was able to tag along with state botanist Carol Dawson and her CLM interns to conduct rare plant surveys. The work they were doing was more of what I was looking to get experience in, and something I could see myself doing in the future.

With that said, I don’t think I could have had a better place to work. Kremmling may be small, but it is surrounded by ski towns and wilderness areas in all directions. The staff here at the office is relatively young, so we’re always having a good time in and out of the office. It also helps having 11 seasonals living at the bunkhouse. Not only are the people and the location a plus, but my job entailed riding UTV/ATVs up mountain sides and camping/rafting on the Colorado River. I had great co-workers, a cool mentor, and beautiful scenery – I think I got pretty lucky this summer.

I am heading back to New York for 2 months just in time for the Fall foliage to see my family and talk to some professors about graduate school. From there I will be heading back to Colorado to work at Keystone resort as a ski instructor and hopefully come back to Kremmling for a few months next summer before I head to graduate school. We will see what the future brings, but I am positive that this internship will play a big role in what my future holds.

Trip to Canyonlands NP

Canyonlands

Canyonlands

Spring Creek MIMS hit hard by cattle

Grassland Utilization Surveys (line transect)

MIMS at Govt Creek

Well inventory

Spraying Black Henbane(Hyoscyamus niger)