Lately, the internship with the BLM in Carson City has enabled me to experience the unusual. Among these new activities:
~Managing and analyzing the only data in existence on a picky little buckwheat that grows in diatomaceous soils in western Nevada. Currently on the USFWS candidate list, the determination to list the plant as threatened or endangered is based partially on the data we present.
The crew out among the sagebrush, checking out our favorite little buckwheat.
~Wandering among abandoned, graffiti-ed buildings once used for processing ore that now need to be monitoring and treated for noxious weeds.
Rabbitbrush and intern Kevin peering into a tagged cement building.
~Being among the first to traverse a new highway bridge still in construction. The construction managers are now restoring the slopes leading to a creek below the bridge that were filled in and re-excavated, and our job is to ensure the vegetation seeding and regrowth is occurring satisfactorily.
Excavators re-contour the land below a new large highway bridge.
The geometrically pleasing new highway bridge.
~On the same trip, being among the last to pass through a cement tunnel built over the aforementioned creek to protect it during construction. Half-dead willow trees still stand on shore and pigeons still fly among them. It felt like a strange take on Disneyland’s “It’s a Small World.”
The tunnel is directly under the bridge and still has trees growing inside.
Chopped off willows still inhabit the cement tunnel below the new highway bridge. The tunnel will be demolished within the year.
I am eager to get out in the field even more and explore the secret lands of Nevada. It is rewarding to monitor and help restore these beautiful places to healthy ecosystems.
Three of us interns on a beautiful hike to a fire recovery site.