Hello! My name is Mike Mahoney, and this is my first blog post as a CLM intern. Following training in mid-June, I trekked 2,100 miles cross country in my tiny hybrid and arrived at my home base for the next 5 months, Susanville, California. Just an hour and a half north of Reno, Susanville sits in a valley at the intersection three different eco-regions with the Great Basin to the east, the Sierra Nevada Mountains Range to the west, and the Cascades to the north. For the next 5 months I’ll be working out of the Bureau of Land Management’s Eagle Lake Field Office. The office mostly manages rangeland in the Great Basin to the north and south east of the city in both California and Nevada

From one of the trails in Susanville Ranch Park, you can get a great view of Susanville! Check out the snow capped Diamond Mountains, a part of the Sierra Nevada’s, in the background.

During my first two weeks in office, my co-intern and I spent a good deal of time getting ourselves acquainted with the field office and the lands managed. At first glance, there does not seem to be much out on these lands. A good deal of the management area is mountainous and rocky, covered in mid thigh height shrubs or grass, only to be broken up by the occasional riparian area or table land. Much to my surprise, there is a large demand for public land, even though it may look to just be sitting there unused. Our office manages the land for cattle grazing, wild horse populations, off terrain vehicle usage, other outdoor recreation purposes (ie. camping, hiking, etc.), and last but certainly not least, conservation and restoration of native flora and fauna. Additionally, in our office we have range experts, archeologists, wildlife biologists, and ecologists, all with different agendas and expectations for management strategies. It’s a dynamic and exciting process with real outcomes!

Burrowing owls are some of the sensitive animal species our field office manages! This owl was found at a site adjacent to some of our sage brush study plots.

Now, as a transplant to the west, I have a lot to learn about the natural history of the area and the cultures of the people that shape this landscape. Hopefully by the end of this internship, I will be better acquainted with not only the native plants, seed collection, and monitoring strategies, but that I also will gain new insight into this holistic management process.

We took a trip to naturally occurring sand dunes in our management area. Check out my co intern Jake’s post to see some of the Ponderosa Pines growing at the location!