Hello and thank you for reading my first blog entry! I hope you return frequently to check out my entries, plus all posts from fellow CLM interns. My name is Maria, and I’m interning with the Bureau of Land Management in Cedar City, Utah.

This was my first week at work, and it has been all about transitioning and getting comfortable in a brand new part of the world. I am from Maine, and I went to college at St. Lawrence University in Northern New York, where I studied conservation biology and anthropology. Prior to the Chicago Botanical Garden giving me the opportunity to move out to Utah, the farthest west I had ever traveled in the U.S. was Gettysburg, Pennsylvania on a family trip. I knew that living and working in Utah was going to be very new and exciting.

The landscape is the first thing I notice. Even though I’ve been living in Utah for a few weeks now, I still can’t get over the impressive landscape. Cedar City is surrounded by mountains and sagebrush habitat, a stark difference from the heavily forested and gentle slopes of the east coast. Mule deer, pronghorn, and wild horses are a common sight around the Cedar City BLM field office. The birds are different too. I am an avid birder, and working on avian surveys and raptor nesting projects in the coming weeks will help me learn about the many different west coast species that I’m unfamiliar with.

Recently it has been raining a lot in Maine, but in Utah it has been comfortably warn and dry. The relatively arid environment preserves ancient geologic features. The bare rock of the nearby mountains and canyons of Southern Utah are home to more than great wildlife, but also prehistoric petroglyphs. The Parowan Gap, fifteen minutes down the road from the BLM, is a gallery of well-preserved rock art, some of it dating back at least 12,000 years. What exactly the carvings represent is a mystery, but despite that, the drawings of the Fremont, Hopi and Paiute people over thousands of years are incredible and are worth visiting.

So far, working with the BLM has been insightful and a lot of fun. More fieldwork is on the way, and I’ll be sure to report back about further adventures here in Utah!