First, I will tell you a little bit about myself. My name is Erica and I grew up in the south suburbs of Chicago, IL. I went to college at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, CO and graduated this past December. I have a degree in Fish, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology with a concentration in Conservation. After graduating, I worked for the USGS FORT Science Center in a lab processing macro invertebrates for a Jams project. I was thrilled to be offered an internship through the CLM. My internship is with the US Fish and Wildlife Service in Klamath Falls, OR. I had never been to Oregon before moving here. Oregon is so beautiful!!! I am working with two other interns, Nicki and Alia. We are currently assisting with three projects.

Josh, our mentor, has us rearing and monitoring Lost River (Deltistes luxatus) and shortnose suckers (Chasmistes brevirostris). Both are currently listed as endangered. A major contributing factor to their decline was crucial habitat loss and/or degradation. Due to high mortality rates of larvae and juveniles, their recovery is limited. My first week, we went out into the field at night to collect sucker larvae. We collected the larvae with a sweep net dropped off of two bridge sites. Kircher’s bridge is absolutely gorgeous.

Kircher’s Bridge.

Before we started collecting, we saw a Bald Eagle eating a fish near the water. It was awesome! We collected at these sites for two nights until we had a significant amount of larvae (estimated over 2,000). We placed them into water pens at the office. We will monitor and feed them until we transfer them into our net pen docks that are within natural waters. We will continue to study and monitor the suckers until we release them near the end of the internship. This week we built the docks at Rocky Point. Today we installed the nets. We will transfer the larvae into the net pens next week.

Alia at the water pens!

Floating Docks.

Julie, a Fish Biologist, has us assisting with a rearing program for the Lost River and shortnose suckers. We will monitor three different sized fishponds. These ponds are not stocked yet. Last Friday was my first time at the ponds. We monitored for predators and fish. We collected water levels and sonde data.

One of the three ponds.

Darrick, a Senior Fish Biologists, has us assisting with Applegate’s Milk-vetch (Astragalus applegatei) surveys. The Applegate’s Milk-vetch is currently listed as endangered. We will be surveying for this milk-vetch at the Crater Lake Klamath Regional Airport. The airport has planned to expand and develop another runway. We will be in the field all next week conducting surveys.

I started my internship May 11th. My first week I went into the field two times (stated above) but most of the time I was at the MOCC (Motorboat Operation Certification Course). I learned a lot of useful information during this course. I had never driven a boat before and did not know how to tie boating knots. Now I feel 100xs more confident about boating. I will definitely use everything I learned at MOCC throughout this internship.

Completed Net Pen Docks!

My second week consisted of various required training. I went out into the field one day to collect zooplankton for our larvae. It is so neat to see how much life is in the water! This is my third week and it has been a busy one. We built the floating docks, prepared the nets, and installed the net pens. Brock and James from BOR helped us. It is so beautiful here. It looks like we will be out in the field most of the summer. AWESOME! Everyone at the office has been so welcoming and nice. I am beyond grateful for this opportunity. I am excited to see how the rest of the summer goes.

Till next time,

~Erica