When I moved from the mountains of Wyoming to the desert of Southeastern Arizona it was obvious things were going to be different.  The landscape, the culture, the flora/fauna, and especially the climate all greeted me with a stark contrast with what I had been used to.  With all that being different, one thing never wavered, and that was my love for the outdoors and biology.  I work with the BLM field office in Safford Arizona monitoring native fish and controlling invasive fish populations, which means getting down and dirty in the water and muck on a daily basis.  It’s awesome.  Recently, our field team went on our annual monitoring trip on the Gila River to assess the populations of the fish in there.  The section of the river we were in falls into the Gila Box Riparian National Conservation Area, which restricts motor vehicle access, meaning that our typical protocol of driving to each site would not fly.  This restriction meant that in order to do the job we needed to travel the old school way: via water.  Roughly twenty miles of river and four monitoring sites greeted us over the course of three days.  At these sites we delineated areas based on habitat, electro-shocked to census various fish species, and used a device called a gravelometer to measure the size of the rocks on the river bottom.  The whole time I was in awe of how beautiful the landscape was and the fact that it was an incredible thought that this was ACTUALLY my job.  I mean, there’s not many jobs out there where one can say they get to be outside in gorgeous scenery doing a fulfilling job like conserving life on earth.  Although I am only a month into this job,  it has already taught me invaluable life lessons, such as the fact that no matter where you are there is a beauty in being outside and away from everything.  I can’t wait to see what the next four months have in store and where this opportunity takes me.  Until then though, cheers.