Pinedale, Wyoming

I am starting my third month in Pinedale. It feels good that the wildlife seasonal and I have both gotten into a routine and can take control of our project each day. Most of the last month has been our Lynx habitat inventories, we only have 10 points left to review. It went by pretty fast and we have been a lot quicker with our assessments, horizontal cover readings, and navigation. Navigating the two track roads on ridges, hills, and through oil and gas fields has been something to get used to but after the past few weeks I am a lot more confident. We haven’t had to retrace our steps in a while! Oh and mud…the daily rain has begun but I now am very capable of rescuing rigs that are stuck in the mud. I’m sure many other people have been experiencing the same thing. Life skills!

Navigating the faint two track

On our way to work through a maze of roads

We still have Lynx data to complete but I am happy that I still get to go out and help with smaller assignments in between. On my list of upcoming projects we have a sage grouse catch up and radio collar, post burn aspen monitoring, amphibian surveys, signage and fence maintenance, grass height measurements (to account for amount of cover the sage grouse will have to nest in the spring) and a few other surveys that may go through. It has been great to get a lot of experience with a variety of techniques.

Post burn aspen monitoring

I was also lucky enough to hear about the Wyoming Wildlife Society conference in Sheridan this year and our office is allowing us to go. It will be a great networking experience with plenty of student and professional talks and exciting necropsy and habitat workshops. It is only a few weeks away and I am grateful to get to go and help with events and projects at the conference. Can’t wait!

We also found out that some CBG interns who are working in Cheyenne will be coming to Pinedale for a week to get some more field experience. It will be fun to be the one showing people around and I met these interns at the workshop in Chicago so it will be awesome to meet up with them again!

I haven’t stopped exploring either. There are plenty of hikes and National Parks to visit and I’ve been taking advantage of it all!