During the last month and a half, we have been wrapping up our ESR monitoring and doing data entry. Looking back, I have learned an enormous amount over the course of my internship. My knowledge of the Bureau of Land Management-as it encompasses public land management -has increased ten-fold. I now believe that I have a more holistic approach to land conservation and management. In particular, my knowledge has augmented in the subjects of fire ecology, riparian monitoring, and rangeland management.

Monitoring at the fire sites, I now understand the multilateral characteristics of fire, as it relates to ecological integrity; fire is an inherent part of the sagebrush steppe ecosystem. However, as an ecological tool, fire has become detrimental to the rangeland. Overarchingly, the invasion of annual grasses, most notably medusa head rye and cheat grass, has displaced native vegetation, and has subsequently increased the fine fuel load. In addition, the extensive drought that has plagued the West has amplified the fine fuel load, as annual invasive plants are more competitive than native vegetation in drought conditions. Consequently, this makes the landscape extremely flammable. A management technique to combat this has been to intensify grazing, which reduces the fine fuel load. Yet, this must be done in a sustainable methodology, so are to preserve the integrity of the plants, especially given the drought conditions.

Moreover, we have learned how to conduct riparian monitoring using the Multiple Indicator Monitoring (MIM) of stream channels and streamside vegetation. This included measuring the greenline to greenline width, documenting what species were in the greenline, what tree species were in the canopy, and what different size substrate was found across the steam channel. I had never done this before, so this was entirely new and fascinating to me. We also had the opportunity to help out with a riparian construction project where we amended head cuts in a stream, so as to raise the water table. To do so, we laid out boulders in a methodical way, which should hopefully catalyze the buildup of sediment. This, in turn, over time, raises the stream back up to the original flood plain level, as head cuts erode streams, making them deeper. I hope to do more riparian monitoring during the remainder of my internship!

Our riparian head cut project!

Things have been busy in the district, but luckily it has been clear blue skies lately. After making nearly 30 Seeds of Success collections, we are transitioning to a variety of other botany projects before fall collections pick up again. We even got the opportunity to go out with the Wildlife crew to go caving! We explored a few known lava tube caves looking for bats – unfortunately there were no bats to be found. The crew lead speculated people digging for new entrances to the caves had likely altered the airflow in the cave which rendered the habitat unsuitable for winter shelter. On day two of caving, we were on the hunt for new caves! We found three new “caves”… classified as such because we could fit a body inside (not quite as impressive as the lava tubes from the day before). Spicata’s Web was my favorite with spider webs and Pseudoroegneria spicata surrounding the entrance.

We recently made an amazing collection of seed for Chamaebatiaria millefolium (Desert Sweet/Fern Bush) in this same lava field, and I was constantly on the lookout for new caves – I kept needing to remind myself that I was there for the seed and not for the caves. I am pretty bummed that we will not be heading back to this area again – definitely one of my favorites of the season. (My boots will be happy about not trecking through the lava flows though)

The Devil’s Garden is fascinating for all of the geologic, historic, and biological factors… lava tube caves, cattle rustling, and Wilderness Study Areas… I could go on for days. There is always something new to learn in the Lakeview District!

Chamaebatiaria millefolium (Desert Sweet//Fern Bush)

The Devil’s Garden – lava flows

This past week I had the opportunity to work with my mentor as well as crew leads from the Range and Fisheries departments to conduct riparian monitoring using the Multiple Indicator Monitoring protocol. It was fun to see three departments coming together to focus on one project – stream health! The protocol was very detailed and we had to check in with the book multiple times throughout the process.

Multiple Inidcator Monitoring (MIMs) with Botany, Fisheries, and Range Crews!

I’m excited to see where my last month in Lakeview leads me, but for now it’s time to head back to stalking job boards.

Kayla

BLM – Lakeview Resource Area

Lakeview, OR

Hello all,

I would like to share two stories. The first happened earlier today – I helped a native woman named Donna cut wood from sp. Sambucus to make clapper sticks, instruments that are used during Native American ceremonies. I clipped stalks and segmented them for her. Apropos of my previous posts where I wrote about the cultural resources that nature provides. In return, human land use affects how the natural resources are replenished. In writing a few plant guides here at the PMC, I have been fortunate enough to come across the book Tending the Wild by M. Kat Anderson. In it, Kat talks about indigenous land management and how Native Americans used to cut plants to collect resources. Where a young pad was harvested from a prickly pear cactus, two pads would grow. Cutting old deergrass stimulated abundant new vegetation to be used for basketry materials, clearing dead material and activating new growth. The same goes for burning fields and reminds me of the fire adapted plants of the tallgrass prairie in my home-state of Illinois. Frequently disturbed plants are not damaged, but rejuvenated – I was glad to take part in that experience with Donna.

Secondly, I visited Mia at the BLM Mother Lode Field Office yesterday! Mia is a fellow CLM Intern that I got in touch with earlier in our internships, and I finally made it out to help her with SOS seed collection: a BLM/NRCS collaboration, you might say. We drove to a Pine Hill Preserve parcel and collected yerba santa (Eriodictyon californicum) seeds. It was nice to chat about our internships, careers, and interests. After collecting as much as we could, we made a small hike over to an area with a newly described sedge, Carex xerophila. After we found it, we took coordinates to keep for record. The rest of our time was spent on the highest peak in Pine Hill and then back in Mother Lode. Unfortunately ArcGIS wasn’t cooperating but what can you do? I’ll be sure to invite Mia to the Lockeford PMC to help us with planting in the fall!

Until next time,

Michal

USDA-NRCS

Lockeford, Calfironia

I can’t believe the summer has flown by so fast; I have started to see some of our few deciduous trees turn colors, it’s August! This past month has been very busy, my fellow intern and I were able to get UTV training to help access some of our inventory units. As with a lot of BLM land in northeastern Wyoming, several of our project locations are surrounded by private land, and with the grasses finally curing, the landowner is worried about grass fires and so we get to use the UTV. This project is primarily to reduce the risk of mountain pine beetles through implementing a timber sale. This location is just south of Sundance and for any of you who likes classic movies this is where the “Kid” got his name. One of the great things about this project location is that there are views of Devils Tower on the horizon. So every day we get to eat our lunch with some amazing views with cows looking on.

A weekend excursion to Mt Rushmore

A Mama and her calf

A great place to work

Our lunch companion

Trees will grow anywhere, this juniper is growing on the side of Devils Tower

Besides the projects that we have been working on throughout the summer, there have been opportunities to help out other field offices. Last week we were helping a fire ecologist and a state forester assess and inventory land for a timber sale, with the final goal of reducing tree densities. With the reduction of tree densities, the likelihood of a catastrophic crown fire is reduced. It was amazing to work with and learn from people who are professionals, even if they scoff at that title. As the project location was approximately 3 hours from our field office, the other intern and I were able to camp in southern Montana next to the Powder River. All I can say is that car camping has so many benefits over backpacking. This is one of the aspects of this internship that I have really enjoyed, working with different people and learning aspects of this job that I had not even considered.

Our Montana campsite

Sometimes Erin and I don’t need a map to get where we’re going anymore… that’s how I know we’ve been here a while, though the summer has seemed to pass so quickly. People in our office sometimes ask us how the summer is progressing and our answer is mostly the same; we are grateful for the variety of tasks this internship has offered over the last few months. Although the majority of our time is spent monitoring for the rangeland department, we have also juggled in some SOS collections, wildlife projects and will be monitoring wild horse populations starting at the end of the week.

Because our SOS collections were concentrated on sage grouse important forbs, most of our seed collections, presently totally seven, were squeezed into July. August has been spent waiting on sagebrush to begin flowering and keeping an eye on a couple late-blooming forbs. We are hoping we will end the season with a few more collections including green rabbitbrush, several types of sagebrush and Bigelow’s tansyaster. Also in the next few weeks our attention will turn towards boxing up our seed and shipping it away for official record and cleaning.

Erin & I collecting common yarrow seed for SOS

Machaeranthera bigelovii – one SOS species left to collect

One exciting project we helped with this month was greater sage grouse collaring, which requires working late into the night. This was my first time riding an ATV, but it also happened to mean riding it with only one hand and in the dark until 2 am. I could only use one hand to steer the ATV because the other was occupied by a spotlight to spot the sage grouse and keep them still until we could launch a net over them to keep them down. All this didn’t prove to be as enormously difficult as it sounded to me at first and turned out to be a bizarre, but fun first experience. Unfortunately our luck ran out after the first hour, during which we had collared only one female hen and we didn’t see many more after that. The project, which is run by a grad student from the University of Wyoming, is aimed at studying sage grouse habitat preference under manipulated habitat conditions. The GPS collars are important for tracking the female’s choices for nesting habitat and movement year round. He reportedly had much more success later in the week finding hens in a different area.

After collaring female sage grouse hen

The end of July corresponded with the end of data collection for a large on-going vegetation study Erin and I were doing for the range dept, which made up the majority of our field time. With this field work behind us, we have returned to sequentially monitoring riparian areas in grazing allotments for overgrazing. On Monday we were given the feat of monitoring a pasture encompassing an 8 mile canyon called Sweetwater Canyon. It’s considered a hidden gem in the field office because it’s difficult to get to and it harbors the beautifully cool Sweetwater River and its surrounding lush vegetation. Our job was to photograph the key areas along the bank for data about the utilization and to look for any cattle that may have been left behind in there before the fall/winter. Through hiking was made easier by a patchwork of cattle and game trails along side the river, but was still convoluted and slow-going in the steepest parts of the canyon. Despite the added shade it was still a hot day, but very rewarding by the end.

Showing the height of riparian species in Sweetwater Canyon

Weekends here have been spent zipping from one adventure to the next, from the Wind River range here in Lander to the Tetons and to Yellowstone. Although I’m looking forward to the fresh coolness of fall, my friends and I here are scrambling to get in the last weekend adventures before the end of summer, with its long days and the absence of snow.