Hello all. This is my first time posting a blog, so bare with me (if you are even reading this ha). My CLM internship has brought me to the beautiful town of Lander, Wyoming working for the BLM as a botany intern. My passion and interests lies with wildlife, but there wouldn’t be any wildlife without plant life so I am still enjoying my research and work. Plus, anything that gets me out of the office and in the backcountry dealing with nature is a good job in my book!
I have been working for three weeks now and I am already learning so much. My partner and I, who has her M.S. in Botany, have been given the duty to create an herbarium for the Lander BLM office along with carrying out the SOS program. It has been a lot. There is no botanist in the office so we are doing all of the planning and research. This has made it hard for us to make it out in the field, but I have been gaining crucial planning and management skills. I am also learning my way around the ArcGIS system, which is suuuch a good skill to have. By the end of this summer, I will be a gps/gis, map reading pro! We do a lot of map studying, map plotting, and map creating on ArcMap. We also heavily use the topographic maps given to us from the office. They are really awesome maps.
Our work is not limited to maps, however haha… we also have been doing research on the local flora, figuring out what species are important to collect, when they are in flower/fruit/seed, and where we can locate a healthy population. When we are confident we have gathered this important information we head out into the field and that’s where the real fun begins! Wyoming has so much public land, and it is jaw dropping. I am lucky to be working in the Northwest area because I am close to the National Forests (Tetons and Yellowstone anyone? Yuup). There are canyons, rivers, rolling green hills and barren lands that hold their own type of empty beauty. It is an amazing feeling to be on top of a butte with a 360 degree view of just nothing but sky, sage brush, and the occasional pronghorn or wild horse herd.
The herbarium is going to include mainly the species of concern in our area. This is a list of 12 plants that have different flowering periods. So we focus on the group that is in flower and try to find a healthy population to collect, map and collect data on the GPS. Then we take the collections back to the office to press and mount and upload the data onto ArcGIS. I am very lucky to be working with a botanist who has herbarium experience. She is teaching me a lot.
We had to come up with our own list of plants to collect seed from, figure out when they seed (as there is no good source on the local forbs of Wyoming), and find where their ranges are. My partner and I are not from Wyoming, so we are shooting in the dark here. We have just been picking brains around the office and researching in different books and online sources to find our information. It has been a process for sure. We are still not sure if our list is right and it consists of 100 plants that I know we will not be able to collect from. But we are meeting with Adrienne next week and I am sure she will clear things up for us. I am excited to meet with her.
I have only been in Lander for a month, but I have already fallen in love. I hope to get connected with the Fish and Game and the University of Wyoming and figure out my next step after this because I do not want to go back east!
Peace and Love,
Rebecca Stern