We have begun the count down into our last month here at the Lander BLM field office, but that doesn’t mean our workload has slowed down! We should have about 13 Seeds of Success collections by the end of our season, with currently two more late collections to still make. A good chunk of our remaining time will be spent organizing and sending off data and seed collections, something I know Erin and I are both looking forward to immensely. We are both the type of people who appreciate having a well-organized finished product and after all the work that has gone into making our seed collections this summer, I think it will be a rewarding product.
Antelope Bitterbrush seed waiting to be shipped off to Bend, OR
Another item on our list of duties includes field monitoring as long as weather allows. We have been collecting rounds of stubble height data from key species in riparian areas in conjunction with some compliance monitoring to making sure the cattle are moved out of pastures during the appropriate time. In addition to compliance, stubble height standards for healthy riparian areas need to be met (and the sedges/grasses near springs should not being overgrazed to the point of being lost) to be able to allow future grazing. We have about eight sites we visit, all at various springs, spread out over a large allotment in the southern part of our field office.
A group of about 35 wild horses charged me in the field.
We will also be continuing monitoring wild horse populations, concentrating on our next priority Horse Management Area (HMA) over the next few weeks. Since September, we have been monitoring horses in the northern HMA complex and for the next month will focus mostly on the largest southern HMA. This mostly entails driving out the HMA and scouting groups of horses. When we can, we try to get close enough to the herd for good quality photos and to collect accurate observation data. Horse monitoring has been an awesome experience over the last two months… literally filled with moments of awe. There are a few groups of horses we’ve been able to see more than once and really interact with. One day I went out in the field on my own to do some monitoring and came across a group of about 35 that we had seen on previous days. I parked my truck and skirted around the edge of a hill on foot, walking into the wind. I popped up on top of the slope about 200 yards from where they were grazing in a small basin. Unlike the other times we’d snuck up on a herd, when horses had taken off in the opposite direction, within about 30 seconds all the horses were running straight towards me. I stood there, letting it happen before I could really even think about what was happening and then they veered off to my right and came level on the hill with me. After I few moments of taking in the threat of me they took off again down the other side of the hill. It was wild.
In addition to monitoring and SOS data/seed collecting we also have various projects ranging from riparian restoration to fencing and flagging projects to making interpretive signs for a historic cultural site. Today we spent the day restoring a riparian area within an infamously controversial allotment within our field office. The allotment has been seriously overgrazed leading to all kinds of degradation, but today we had the chance to hopefully repair a small piece of that land. There are sections within the drainages of this allotment that have lost so much vegetation that erosion has become a big problem. Bare soil is eroding quickly creating head cuts in the riparian areas that are moving up the drainage with every big rain. We reseeded these and laid down matting over the head cut areas, which should allow vegetation to re-establish and stabilize the currently bare soil. And we expect there will be other projects like this that our co-workers in range department ask for our help with and that add great variety to our work weeks!