Operation: Do Everything Humanly Possible!

Sorry everyone! I am a week late! o_O I have been very busy with all sorts of projects and adventures! No worries, this blog entry is going to be shorter than my other entries… I think ^_^;;

Wildlife Society: Wyoming Chapter Annual Conference

For a couple of days, all of the interns had the opportunity to go to the Wildlife Society’s Wyoming Chapter Annual Conference! This conference was located in Sheridan, Wyoming, which was a thirty minute drive away! We went to many lectures that involved the study of ungulates, diseases, rodents, birds, lizards, and bat surveying. Most of the lectures involved sage grouse, mule deer, and moose. We learned a lot about the inner workings of what the wildlife biologists and policy makers in Wyoming and other Central Plain states do for a living. This was a great place to make connections, network, and learn about new research opportunities. We even met two other CLM interns, Lila and David, from Cheyenne, Wyoming! Since I did not go to the Chicago Botanic Gardens this year, it was nice to see other interns and hear about what they do for their job. Overall, the conference was very educational and I learned a great deal about GIS, wildlife biology, and the importance of restoration/ mitigation studies.

Heather, Myself, Jill, BLM Legend Don, and Sara at the Wildlife Society Conference! \(^_^)/

PRBR: Powder River Basin Restoration Program

Heather had the fantastic opportunity to work on the PRBR program. This study helped with the restoration and enhancement of sage grouse habitat. She would take us to different sites to do an assortment of ground truthing projects. Heather wanted to make sure that the ground truthing/ ocular estimates were similar to the supervised classifications developed from the ArcGIS program. This would help with an accurate assessment later in the planning stages. We mapped different juniper stands, looked for prairie dog towns, and estimated cheatgrass cover density. The results would help with future restoration projects involving the spraying of cheatgrass and the planting of sagebrush and other native plants in the area to promote ideal sage grouse roosting conditions. (Heather could give you a more detailed explanation of the project… I am just giving the cliff notes. <_<;;)

Determining cheatgrass densities using the ocular estimate method.

When we would go out to some of the sites, we would draw the landscape on a paper map with colored pencils showing where there were cheatgrass patches, sagebrush, warm season grasses, and bare ground areas. Heather would then use a detailed scale form to assess the landscape. All of the sites we visited had fire history, so we were looking within the fire perimeter for disturbed areas and cheatgrass densities.

When doing PRBR assessments, sometimes we would go by prairie dog villages and see burrowing owls. They were pretty hard to find. If you look carefully, you can find one in this picture! ^_^

When doing PRBR assessments, we would go by prairie dog villages and see burrowing owls. They were pretty hard to find. If you look carefully, you can find one in this picture! ^_^;;

Office Work! Into the BLM Catacombs!

Did you know that the Buffalo BLM has their own hallway-road system within their office? They labeled each hallway with a specific name and there were maps of the office layout in different cubicles in case you were lost. Especially in the beginning of my internship, you could easily get lost within the building when trying to find the filing system. That was just a fun fact! ^_^;

An over exaggerated representation (brought to you by my imagination) of what I thought the BLM office looked like when I first arrived for my internship.

Anyways, Sara and I were very busy with all kinds of office work relating to our 2014 field season. Our main job would be to work with DIMA (Database for Inventory, Monitoring, and Assessment) and make maps with the ArcGIS. DIMA required a large amount of data entry involving habitat quality, species list, detailed notes, sagebrush densities, topography, slope, fire history, grazing history, invasive plants, water sources, climate, transect data, and soil profiles to name a few. We also had to develop detailed maps of our study area to help with future monitoring efforts. My goal would be to make the most detailed and accurate maps ever. After DIMA and the maps, photograph files of the transects for each site would have to be developed. In the end, we would have to enter the catacombs of the filing system room and create folders for each of the allotments we monitored. All of our data entry would be printed out and put into a folder within the filing system.

The Return of Russian Thistle

Watch out! Russian thistle is ready to take over! Luckily the Buffalo CLM Interns are ready to weed!

We had to return to Welch Ranch Recreation Area to continue with weeding. Most of the field bindweed (Convolvulus arvensis) had been pulled, except for a few sneaky plants growing under the plastic tarps within the green needlegrass (Nassella viridula) section. With the absence of field bindweed, Russian thistle (Salsola tragus) wanted to take control and dominate over the southern section of the BLM Field of Dreams. Most of the Russian thistle was difficult to remove, because they had matured and developed a series of tiny spines. Each plant was the size of a softball with some growing to the size of a soccer ball. They love disturbed sites and each plant contained around 250,000 seeds! Fortunately for us, they were very easy to pull out of the ground. All of the interns used thick leather or rubber gloves and pulled a large amount of the Russian thistle. Now the bluebunch wheatgrass (Pseudoroegneria spicata) and green needlegrass were at peace thanks to the weeding efforts of the Buffalo, CLM interns. Looks like the Russian thistle would not make another appearance until next season.

CLM Interns weeding the Russian thistle. ^_^

To Newcastle, Wyoming! Where are you, Paper Birch!?

Jill was given the task by one of the Buffalo BLM fire planner staff members to go out into the field and collect seed from paper birch (Betula papyrifera) in the Black Hills region in the Newcastle District. The goal was to collect seed to help with future post fire restoration efforts. Jill, Heather, and I drove to the Newcastle BLM to pick up Caroline, who was another CLM intern who knew a lot about the Newcastle District. She helped us navigate in the back logging roads to the areas where there were paper birch! Caroline was talking about the forestry practices and helped us identify all kinds of trees. We went to two sites to look for paper birch. The first site was not very productive and we did not find a lot of birch trees. We looked in different areas near ravines or valleys, but there were hardly any birch. We followed the map to the second site. When we arrived at our next destination, we found a huge population of paper birch!! They all had seed, but the majority of the crop was not ready to be harvested yet, so Jill would have to come back in a couple of weeks to collect some of the birch seeds.

On an adventure to find the elusive paper birch trees. We eventually found a huge patch!

Misadventures

Grand Tetons

On Labor Day weekend, all of the interns and one of the seasonal employees decided to visit Grand Tetons National Park! This area was my favorite place to visit! I must have been to this region at least twenty times in my life. Even though the weather was rainy and a little cloudy, we managed to do a couple of hikes, look at different visitor centers, visit Jackson Hole, watch all of the sunsets, take many pictures, and try to find as many bird species as possible. This place was so beautiful even with all of the rain clouds!

Some pictures of the Grand Tetons and their biological wonders!

Would You Like to Go Rock Hounding?

Wyoming offers an abundance of wildlife, trails, mountains, and festivals, unfortunately they do not have many areas to go rock hounding. Areas like Oregon, Montana, New Mexico, or California have a plethora of rocks, minerals, and fossils. The state of Wyoming does have plenty of fossils, but they do not have a lot of interesting rocks or minerals. One of the most bountiful objects that could be found almost everywhere in the Buffalo Field Office District was degraded petrified wood. Some areas have orange calcite and interesting gypsum crystals. Areas around by Worland do have agates, jasper, star impact calcite, but they were hard to find. I do have a nice collection of rocks including a small meteorite that I found in the field! I am still on the search for rare rocks and minerals. Hopefully, I would hit the jackpot soon! ^_^