The many hours I’ve spent over the last month have been well worth my endurance. I’m finally off the road–so to speak, at least in the sense of my travels coming to a temporary end in the result of my arrival to Carlsbad, NM. I’m here to stay for a while and learn and experience as much as I can for the duration of my internship with the Carlsbad BLM office… I’m not going to lie to you and say I didn’t do one of the tourist-y things I could do in Carlsbad by visiting the Carlsbad Caverns National Park as soon as I got settled! I’m not going to dwell on how amazing that place is, and how I’m going to be visiting that place more than a few times in my off time, and even possibly working there during the day down the road!

Besides that, my internship has been going strong for a little more than 3 weeks now. After getting most of my paperwork and training out of the way I was finally able to venture outside and experience the southeast New Mexico landscape. For my first excursion my mentor took me out into the field to shadow him on how the BLM wildlife biologist handle dealing with the oil & gas industry in proposing pipelines, drilling wells/islands and such. It was not so much biologically entertaining as I saw a good glimpse into what Southeast NM industry was really all about. OK, not all about, but probably the most “socially” relevant. I wish I could provide an accurate picture of what this landscape looks like for those that are as unaware as I was before coming here, but I’ve yet to find [produce] a satisfying photo for our pleasure. It was definitely an eye opening experience.

Outside those instances where the BLM staff met industry, I have started my wildlife work out in the field and my first project/task is to survey areas of the Carlsbad managed public lands for the presence of Sceloporus arenicolus (Dunes Sagebrush Lizard) – a New Mexico designated sensitive status species. This species is also listed as “vulnerable” under the IUCN red list. So far we’ve only used pit traps in three locations for five trapping days. Unfortunately, that has yielded us with no detection of S. arenicolus in those areas thus far, but I have been fortunate to at least get some first hand experience in handle some local lizards, one of comparable size.

One of the species we have found is Uta stansburiana (Common side-blotched lizard), a small dune-dwelling lizard in comparable size to S. arenicolus. A lot of the males of this species are showing off some pretty brilliant colors as it is mating season. Uta stansburiana has actually been shown to have an inverse relationship with our target species S. arenicolus; it is thought that U. stansburiana acts as a competitor for the resources within dune habitats that our target species prefers.

Another of the species we’ve encountered have been members of a whiptail species found in this region – genus: Cnemidophorus. I’ve yet to identify the exact species, but it’s most likely C. dixoni, C. tigiris, or C. tesselataus. It’s pretty cool I got to handle a few of these creatures, as a lot of whiptails in genus Cnemidophorus are parthenogenetic. This means they produce offspring by asexual reproduction, and coming from one vertebrate [myself] to another, I think that’s really awesome. I’ve learned about this type of reproduction as a kid specifically from the example of whiptail lizards, and for me to now handle one of those species that uses this strategy of reproduction really means a lot to me. It makes me excited, and it cements the fact that I’m definitely in the right field! Oh, nostalgia!

I’ve also been fortunate enough to be accompanied by two other interns Jeanette and Jodie from the Great Basin Institute. Trained in the magic arts of plant taxonomy and ecology they know significantly more about the flora in this region (and outside) than I do. Slowly they are helping me refresh and fortify my plant identification skills. Soon we’ll be off to collect our first batch of seeds for the SOS program and, although it was not in my job description, I’m really happy to be partaking in such an endeavor outside of my wildlife focus. The CBG training workshop has left me with a germinating seed of botanical curiosity that I was not expecting! My knowledge is blossoming. I CANNOT wait!

Oh, and I’ll keep up those bad puns, you just sit there and watch… or read.

Armand Cann

Carlsbad Field Office, Bureau of Land Management