“You haven’t experienced Wyoming until you have lived through a Wyoming winter.” That is the message that everyone in my field office kept telling me last year. Well, I got the chance to do so. A few weeks before my internship had ended last fall, the lead wildlife biologist had offered me to come back to the Kemmerer Field Office as a wildlife intern from February through July. He had explained to me that I would have a variety of projects, but most importantly, the office needed more data on the winter habitat for the Greater Sage Grouse. I would be out in the field during the winter mapping pockets of sage brush that were above the snowline along with mapping perimeters of the leks (areas where the grouse group together to mate) and lek surveys in the field office. There would be cold temperatures and 3:30 am wake ups. (Sounds enticing doesn’t it?) Still, I couldn’t pass up another amazing opportunity like this. I got used to the extreme cold temperatures (mornings of -15 degrees) and the gorgeous early morning sunrises. I had a great time snow shoeing and snowmobiling in the back country of Wyoming-things people pay to do…and I was getting paid to do it. After many cold days outside and long days at the computer, I have recently finished the GIS analysis of roughly 3 months worth of data and I helped the office go from 0 acres to over 130,000 acres of mapped winter sage grouse habitat. I am glad it is finally warming up. When the landscape dries out I will be mapping Mountain Plover habitat, conducting Mountain Plover and Burrowing Owl surveys, as well as checking up on raptor nests. I cannot wait! I am thoroughly pleased that I came back!

Larry Ashton
Kemmerer, WY BLM