Taking Root is the title of a documentary telling the compelling story of Nobel Prize winner Wangari Maathai. A seemingly innocuous idea, Maathai discovered that tree planting had a ripple effect of empowering change. Planting trees for fuel, shade, and food is not exactly something that anyone would envision as the first step toward winning such a prestigious award, but as the trees grew, a spirit of hope and confidence also grew in ordinary citizens. Now over twenty years and thirty-five million trees later, the physical and social landscape of Kenya has completely changed.
Many children have few opportunities to break away from their screen oriented lives and get outside to participate in positive outdoor activities and experience nature in a fun way. Over the past school year I have had the chance to provide such opportunities once a month for a local class of third graders through a program known as Taking Root. With the objective of garnishing meaningful interactions between children and the open spaces around them; I was able to share and model my enthusiasm about nature and caring for the environment with 26 youngsters. Unlike so many school activities, lessons in this program were not standard driven; the idea was never to get children to understand the big ecologic picture, but to teach attitudes of curiosity, responsibility, and care for the environment. This was done through the intimate study of individual landscape features: plants, bugs, birds, water, etc. All within a preserved open space just beyond the back fence of the playground. Rather than focusing on proper identification, activities were based on observation and formation of meaningful memories; cattails became known as hotdog plants and mountain chickadee are “cheese-bur-ger” birds.
School and life in general, for a third grader is exceptionally riddled with rules. Just as it is for adults, nature provides the chance for escape and undistracted enjoyment of the moment. It’s okay to run, yell, and throw rocks, if you’re not hoping to see wildlife that is. Environmental education is an opportunity to show kids that school is not a form of incarceration, but a portal to the wider world. Similarly to the way Wangari Maathai helped progress a nation using the environment as a tool toward empowerment; our interactions with Mother Nature and her children are the beginnings of potential preservation and conservation. Can we teach children to look at a flower and see all the things it represents: beauty, the health of an ecosystem, and beyond? Can we test for that? Or should we simply appreciate a child’s infatuation with something beautiful and leave the rest up to them?

A multitude of projects are keeping us Carson City interns quite busy.  The last couple of weeks have been centered around seed collections.  The early season bloomers Lomatium austinae and Amsinckia tessellata were our top priorities and multiple collections were made across our range.  While on these trips, we were kept on our toes by rain, thunderstorms and muddy BLM roads.  Of course, we always welcome the rain in the desert.  We were also able to collect several vouchers of plants for future collections.  The team is also busy preparing for a number of education and outreach events planned throughout the summer.   Collection of native plant materials and research are things we have done thus far in preparation.  A number of different monitoring projects are also being undertaken by our crew.  These include rare species monitoring, drought monitoring and fire rehab monitoring.  While everyone is loving all the time spent in the field, we are all very excited to travel to Yosemite to attend a workshop put on by the California Native Plant Society in two weeks!

Hardscrabble allotment overlooking Pyramid Lake

Cirsium occidentale (native)

Cleome lutea

A chilly morning in the Pine Nuts…

….but very beautiful!

Calochortus nuttallii

 

Spring in Nevada has brought exceptionally cool and rainy weather. However, we need all the rain and snow that we can get before the hot, sunny days of summer begin. According to NRCS, the Sierra Nevada Mountains have less than 25% of the average snowpack (based on a median between 1981 and 2010)! I’m very thankful for the rainy days. It has been wonderful to see fresh snow blanketing the mountain summits and ridges. Hopefully, it will prolong the accumulation of dust on the trails.

Well, I haven’t written a blog for a while now, and I apologize for the delay. So much has happened since the last time I wrote about our adventures. I don’t even know where to begin. I’ll just focus on the highlights of the past month.

We are out in the field nearly every day now. Most of our field work has been the collection of herbarium vouchers and seeds from early flowering species. We have now collected seeds from Lomatium austiniae and Amsinckia tessellata. I have found the collection of seeds very peaceful. During my wandering around in the seed collection sites, I often stir small lizards and birds from their shelter within the sagebrush and greasewood. Last week, during the collection of A. tessellata, I saw two horny toads! These were the first horny toads I have ever seen in Nevada. I’m surprised it took me so long to find them.

Antelope Bitterbrush (Purshia tridentata) in bloom.

There is a lot of work to do in the herbarium at the University of Nevada in Reno. Maggie, Olivia, and I went to the herbarium on a rainy Friday several weeks ago. We identified species and used herbarium specimens to verify current and past SOS collections. The days out in the field are splendid; but, every once in a while, you need to spend some quality time with a dichotomous key, plant identification books, and a microscope.

A day at the herbarium, University of Nevada-Reno.

A couple weeks ago, we ventured into the Pine Nut Mountains for an overnight camping trip. We were planning on monitoring Ivesia pityocharis and collecting more herbarium vouchers and seeds. The first day of our trip began with beautiful weather – cool, but sunny. Yet, as the sun fell behind the Sierra Nevadas, a storm began its own descent upon us. In the vanishing evening light, we quickly pitched our tents, cooked and ate our dinners as fast as we could, zipped up tent doors, and slept through a silent night of falling snow. The next morning, I opened up my tent door to an inch of snow, low visibility, and cold temperatures. As we made tea next to the fire, we realized that monitoring and collecting herbarium vouchers was not possible that day. But I guess that is field work. You just never know what might happen and, at least, we gave it our best shot!

A snowy morning in the Pine Nut Mountains.

I’ve been going into the wilderness as much as I can. About three weeks ago, some of the other interns and I went to Bridgeport, CA for a weekend. We backpacked a little into the Hoover Wilderness, where we hiked around and went fishing. I didn’t catch any fish on my fly-rod. I’m hoping to go out again in the next couple weekends. I would love to catch a Golden Trout! I have never before explored the Great Basin Desert and Sierras, and I’m glad this job opportunity has allowed me to wander through these areas.

Hoover Wilderness, CA.

The Flume Trail, Lake Tahoe.

The San Juan Islands National Monument includes a variety of public lands.  Each have their own value and allure.  There are historic light house locations, where you can view orcas from the porch of light keeper’s quarters.  There are small rocks and islands, some of which disappear completely at high tide.  Others consist of forest, cliffs, and coastal grassland, with amazing views and more amazing plant and lichen communities.  Among these locations, few are more scenic than Iceberg Point on Lopez Island.

Ranunculus californicus at Iceberg Point

Zygadenus venosusus

Eriophyllum lanatum

Iceberg Point is an 88 acre parcel of land on the south west portion of the island.  It’s a mix of forest, small pockets of prairie, and intertidal rocks.  As with other sites in the San Juan Islands, it was tended for hundreds of years by Salish tribes, who would live in the area in the summer seasons.  These areas were burned regularly and probably weeded to an extent to promote the growth of Camas (Camassia leichtinii and quamash) and other food crops.  Though these burns ended almost a century ago, we still see their legacy in the vibrant wildflower community here.  Each spring is an eruption of blue and yellow, purple and pink.  The common flowers include great camas (Camassia leichtinii), meadow death camas (Zygadenus venosusus), taper tip onion (Allium acuminatum), chocolate lily (Fritillaria affinis), Oregon sunshine (Eriophyllum lanatum), Coastal gumweed (Grindelia integrifolia), western and Californian buttercups (Ranunculus occidentalis and californicus), lance leaf sedum (Sedum spathulifolium), early spring violet (Viola adunca), blue eyed grass (Sisirynchium angustifolium), spring gold (Lomatium utriculatum), and prickly pear (Opuntia fragilis).  It also includes three listed imperiled species: California buttercup (Ranunculus californicus), showy Jacob’s ladder (Polemonium pulcherrimum), and white topped aster (Sericocarpus rigidus).

Viola adunca

Camassia leichlinii

With its robust plant community the sound, Iceberg Point has long been a favorite spot of botanists and the Lopez Island community.  People nearby think of Iceberg as their backyard, and walking its trails every day is a form of meditation for many residents. However, Iceberg Point faces several challenges.  Since fire and grazing (Iceberg Point was grazed for a short period) have been removed from the landscape, there has been considerable encroachment from shrubs and trees.  In many spots, what used to be dense camas gardens have turned into thickets of rose and snowberry (Rosa nutkana and Symphoricarpos albus).  In other areas, young stands of Doug Fir (Psuedostuga menzezii) and Grand Fir (Abies grandis) have shaded out shrubs as the land slowly returns to its natural state.  Iceberg Point has also seen an increase in use in recent years.  New user- created trails pop up each year, creating a mosaic of footpaths cutting through sensitive lichen heaths and plant communities.  Trails cut through populations of all three listed species on Iceberg Point.  It bums me out.

Delphinium menzesii

Iceberg Point was included in the San Juan Islands National Monument in 2013.  This proclamation has brought more attention and likely more people to visit places like Iceberg Point, a fact that many residents bemoan.   However, Monument status also means permanent protection of some clearly defined natural values.  As people enter into monument planning, deciding what is important to the landscape, I have great hope that they will make it a goal to protect the integrity of Iceberg Point.  I acknowledge (sometimes begrudgingly) that we all have the right to visit these beautiful and historic public lands.  As public land managers and citizens, we also have the responsibility to conserve, protect, and restore those lands for the benefit of both visitors and community, both plant and people.

There is a peacefulness to discover in the forest. A silence that descends when the canopy hides you from the world. A cooling of the blood as the fire of the city is replaced with the dew dappling the understory.

There is healing waiting at the sea. Pain released with the tide as it pulls away from the shore. Sins are washed away twice daily, a newly altered landscape revealed.

Camping at Buck Creek, along the Lost Coast Trail.

I’m a second season CLMer now! I arrived in Prineville, OR almost a month ago to work on botany projects, especially weeds and seeds on the District. My mentor and fellow seasonals are great and I’m enjoying the change of scenery compared to last year. Central Oregon has a pretty diverse landscape, and the weather here is crazy. You’ve got to be prepared for anything from 35 degrees and snowing to pelting rain to 80 degrees and sunny, all in one field day. I’m learning how to use GIS, which will probably be one of my greatest learnig curves this season. I’m in the middle of lots of exciting trainings, and have already had much variety on the job. I took a workshop on bumble bee conservation that was absolutley fascinating. Did you know bumble bees are the only pollinators that can access the pollen of the Solanaceae? They vibrate at just the right frequency for pollen to come shooting out of those closed off anthers. Pretty cool stuff!

A bunch of the SOS teams of OR got together this week to do seed collectors training and tour the Bend Seed Extractory. It was informative to get the perspective of the receiving end of SOS and watch all the machines and x-raying in action. As the SOS collector in Prineville, I get to hand deliver all my material to Bend, so I will be seeing a lot of Kayla and Sara this summer. I will be getting an OR state pesticide applicator lisence so that I can help the weed crew take care of nasty post-fire invaders. We will also be conducting a lot of weed mapping on these fragile areas. There’s been some sensitive species monitoring that has taken me off the beaten path to some of the districts’ best kept secret beautiful locations, and I’m looking forward to meeting more of our sensitive plants. Last but far from least, I’ve started scouting for our seed collections and developing strategies for prioritizing those collections. This office is very involved in restoration projects and grow-out utilizing the seed that is collected, so it’s a bit different from last year where we focused more on long term conservation storage. I’m looking for important Sagegrouse habitat forbs, workhorse grass species, pollinator collections, and then the opportunistic stuff that happens at the right place and right time. Everything is blooming! So there’s lots of work to be done. It’s good to be back in the CLM family again! Pictures coming soon,

Hannah

I have never written a blog before so this is all new terrain for me. I am starting my intership at the US Fish and wildlife office in Klamath Falls Oregon, in the Ecological Studies section of the bureau. Klamath Falls is a small town with a population of over 20,000. It is a little over half an hour south of Crater Lake National Park, which I visited a few years ago but had no idea what to expect of Klamath Falls.  I have had plenty of experience living in small towns all over, so I didn’t think it would be a huge shock.  My drive luckily was only about 7 hours from Seattle and I got to drive through the beautifully scenic Cascades. After a stressful and frustrating month or so trying to find housing, my fellow interns and I finally found a place to live in town.  Pheww.

A quick snapshot on my way to Klamath Falls through the Cascades.

My first week at the office was mainly formal training:  computer usage, defensive driving, work safety and electrofishing. Work for the summer will be spent on a variety of different projects. Mainly we will be dealing with two endangered species of fish, the Lost River sucker (Deltistes luxatus) and the shortnose sucker (Chasmistes brevirostris).  Both species are endemic to the Upper Klamath basin and were listed endangered back in 1988. Multiple research projects will be working towards their recoveries, with threats being loss/alteration of habitat, blockage to spawning areas, and over-harvesting.  One project consists of constructing net pens on the Upper Klamth Lake, where young suckers will be housed until they are a bit larger to be released. Another concern of recovery is the negligible amount of recruitment of adult fish. Additionally young suckers will be reared in constructed ponds for the next two years, where they can be closely monitored and knowledge of how best to rear suckers can be gained. This is all in an effort to preemptively help the suckers and their recovery before an even more major population loss or extinction occurs. With our section of the office dealing only with endangered species we will be working with Applegate’s Milk-vetch (Astragalus applegatei). This flowering plant is in the pea family (Fabaceae) and was listed in 1993.  It was believed to have been extinct until it was rediscovered in 1983. There are currently 3 extant populations known. The airport in town has proposed an expansion of one of their runways, which will require a biological assessment of its Applegate’s population before proceeding. The assessment will obtain the location and numbers of each plant, obtain seeds, and try to minimize the impact to the population.

My second week was mainly Motorboat Operator Certification Course (MOCC) with a few days of night work, where we went out to collect larval suckers. Boat training is required since a majority of our work will be on the Upper Klamath Lake. The course consisted of three 8-hour days. The first day was all in class, mainly covering the basics of boating, parts of a boat, safety gear, knots, etc. The second day started out with a pool session. We got to experience the different forms of Personal Flotation Devices (PFD), heat lessening position, and how to rescue someone from the water back into the boat. The rest of the day was spent on the water. We practice with three different types of boats, each boat we would preform different practical tasks. The first one was object recovery and rescue. It entailed throwing PFD IVs, which are the ones you throw to someone after they have fallen overboard. Next was actual rescue of a “person” which was a dummy named OSCAR. Poor Oscar was flung multiple times back into the water to be rescued. Another practice was making a star turn, which is making a turn in a small area. Finally was boat docking, which can be an art in and of itself. And lastly off the boats we were tested in our knot making skills and being able to back a boat trailer, which is not very easy. Overall it was a great experience and I learned an amazing amount about boating. Three days is definitely not enough to learn it all, would take a lifetime. But we got the basics. I was nervous about testing, but passed with flying colors! I can’t wait to get out on our workboat this summer and start work.

A view from the bridge we started netting larval suckers from.

Hopefully better photos to come.

Alia Richardson

CLM Intern

Klamath Falls US Fish and Wildlife

7 years ago I moved out of Alaska, not knowing when I would get back. My father is in the Air Force so we were posted away from this great State way too soon. Since 2008, I have lived in three different countries and have traveled even more; however, nothing could compare to my home in Eagle River, Alaska.

I attended University in Kingston, Ontario but always had my eyes set on returning to the mountains upon graduation. I was beyond thrilled when I was accepted to the CLM internship program with Eric Geisler in Anchorage, Alaska!! I was literally jumping in my plane seat while flying northwest towards the Last Frontier. I also had the BIGGEST smile on my face when I caught my first glimpse of mountains.

Some Stellar Peaks!

Anchorage Skyline

My first weekend here was spent biking around the city and feeling a lot of deja view!

Work started on Monday, May 18th and I met my supervisor Eric and fellow interns: Joel and Charlotte. This week we have done a lot of training and have met a lot of people; all of which adds to the excitement of what is waiting for us during the remainder of this internship experience.

I don’t think I can express how happy I am to be back in Alaska and how much I look forward to working with the Bureau of Land Management out in the forests and fields all summer long. I am beyond excited to settle into a new town, adventure around the State and meet even more explorers and all the wonderful people who live, work, or visit this great place.

First day of work….I think I like this office space!

On the road to the field. Bug guts are always included

More posts about plants to follow 🙂

– Jen

AK BLM

Hello!

For my internship I am working with the Rae Selling Berry Seed Bank & Plant Conservation Program (RSBSB) in Portland, Oregon. This is my first year as an intern, but it’s the second year the RSBSB has partnered with CLM and Seeds of Success. Last year the CLM intern for RSBSB, Isaac Sandlin, made over 60 collections – an amazing/impressive (gulp) feat for a single collector! I had the opportunity to visit Isaac on one of his collection trips last year and decided I wanted to participate in SOS and the CLM internship program. Like Isaac, I will largely be on my own in the field. That’s not to say I am alone for my internship; I have been in contact with botanists in the Medford, Lakeview, and Burns BLM offices, Isaac Sandlin, several Native Plant Society of Oregon members from the area, and of course, my mentor at the seed bank, Ed. All have been very helpful and supportive.

Although based in Portland, I will be collecting seeds on the sagebrush steppe of Southeastern Oregon – a very long commute! For this reason, I anticipate two ten-day trips to the field each month. I realize this is somewhat different than the experience other interns have who are living much closer, if not at their main field site. My home while in the field is the campground and my tent. While I had assumed this would be a lonesome experience, my first trip has proven the opposite. I have found my fellow campers to be friendly and inquisitive, often inviting me to join them for coffee or dinner at their campsite. I even met the author of the Flora of Steens Mountain at the campground! He graciously verified some of my specimens and gave me pointers on where to look for other species on my list.

Rocky field of Lomatium cous and L. bicolor var. leptocarpum

Hillside with Balsamorhiza sagittata

The focus for my SOS collections is on plants important to the greater sage-grouse for food and cover. Sage-grouse habitat is an SOS priority and is under consideration by the USFWS for possible listing under the Endangered Species Act. In Harney County, local ranchers and USFWS have been working together to protect sagebrush habitat on private rangeland for the threatened bird and its ecosystem (http://www.fws.gov/greatersagegrouse/). I find this type of cooperation between government agency and private land owner inspiring. Within Harney County is the Steens Mountain Cooperative Management and Protection Area where I have spent most of my days in the field. It too has brought together private land owners and government agencies to both conserve and manage the area. But, I must admit the rainbow checkerboard map of public, private, state, and tribal property boundaries can be difficult to navigate at times…

Greater sage-grouse photo: http://www.blm.gov/style/medialib/blm/wo/Communications_Directorate/public_affairs/sage-grouse_planning/images.Par.14496.Image.600.424.1.gif

Since completing my first trip to the field last week, I am eager to return! I spent a great deal of my time exploring the maze of dirt roads in my monster truck, getting to know the lay of the land while scouting locations for targeted species populations. It also took a while to become familiar with the flora as this was my first trip and my first time working in southeast Oregon. Over the ten days I spent in the field I experienced a broad range of the area’s weather. High winds and below freezing nights welcomed me to my campsite at the base of Steens Mountain the first couple nights. Luckily, I was able to get quite a bit of scouting in before rain, snow, lightning, and thunder made its way to Southeastern Oregon. So far I have collected voucher specimens for 21 targeted species.

Castilleja angustifolia

Astragalus filipes with a weighty pollinator

Orobanche uniflora

However much needed in this drought stricken area, rain and snow made exploration via many of the soft dirt roads difficult, if not impassable, even in my 4-wheel drive truck. Wet, slippery roads or not, I can’t wait to get back out there next week to check on my populations and make new plant friends (the social life of a solitary botanist)!

Road looking east after the first full day of rain

Till next time,

Lindsey

Portland/Harney County, OR