September has gone by quickly in the Lander Field Office! Today is officially the first day of fall, but it does not feel like it. The entire month of September has been in the 75-85 degree range. I am ready for a cool down. Despite the warm weather, the aspen leaves have started to change color in the mountains. They are a fiery mix of oranges and golds that stand out impressively among the conifer stands.

A golden sea of aspen

An aspen leaf

Fall also means that hunting season has started on antelope, grouse, and deer. Seasons on elk and moose start in early October. This means that Emma and I have to take extra precautions while out in the field, since we are often far away from our vehicle in remote areas. We have bright orange hunting vests that we wear into the field to keep us safe.

This month, Emma and I took over the responsibility of wild horse monitoring. We were given maps and assigned Horse Monitoring Areas, or HMAs, to look for horses in.  We started out with two HMAs to explore. While monitoring we try to cover as much ground as we can inside the HMA to find as many horses as possible. Some days we only find a few, which can be frustrating. However, on a few occasions we have encountered more than 100 wild horses in a day. One of the wild horse specialists taught us about wild horse behavior and how we could use our body language to get closer to the horses. One of the most important things we learned is to never face a wild horse head on, either with a car, or with your person. It is seen as a threatening and aggressive behavior. Instead we were told to always face sideways, or show the horse the back of your shoulder. This movement shows trust and helps the horse understand that you are not a threat. I was very impressed by how knowledgeable our horse specialist was and how he could very accurately predict and understand the horse’s behavior.

A wild horse we found while monitoring.

A group of wild horses. These ones were curious about us.

Although we currently work on horse monitoring most days, we still manage to slip in a few other projects. We have done our last round of riparian area monitoring for the rangeland staff. We also have been vouchering a few sagebrush species that we will use as Seeds of Success collections. We have four sagebrush species that we are waiting to collect, as well as a shrub called Winterfat. All of these species need cold weather for the seeds to ripen, so we are waiting for a cold front.

A flowering Wyoming Big Sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata ssp. wyomingensis).

Winterfat is one of my favorite shurbs, it’s fluffy!

This month we also got to work on a multi-agency project between the BLM, the Forest Service, and Wyoming Game and Fish. The project was to delineate aspen stands containing conifers. The goal is to mark the stands that contain conifers, and then have a crew come in to remove the conifers. It is important for the conifers to be removed because they will out-compete the aspen, and aspen are a better species for wildlife. Aspen also do not burn as easily as conifers, which helps with fire suppression. They also are very quick to regrow after a fire, if a fire does occur.

During my free time I hiked up to Louise Lake with some friends, got my first peek at snow this season!

Visited the Tetons for my birthday

Overall the month of September has been busy and exciting. I am grateful that this internship allows us to work on such a wide variety of projects. We are never bored and we are learning so many new skills. I can’t wait to see what other projects are in store for us. Two more months to go!

Until next time,

Erin, BLM- Wyoming, Lander Field Office