Farewell, Johnny!

Looking back on the last five months I am astounded at how quickly this internship has gone by. I still don’t think it has fully hit me that today was my last day, and that I will be leaving the beautiful state of Wyoming in a few days. I quickly fell in love with the Wind River Mountain Range, over which I watch the sun set from my back porch every night, and I have really enjoyed my position as a wildlife biology intern. I can honestly say that this internship has taught me the most and I have gained a lot of amazing experiences and skills. Through working with my BLM mentor and doing field work, I feel so much more directed in my career path than when I first started here. I will continue to pursue a career in Wildlife Biology, hopefully with the Federal government or a non-profit.

This internship has also helped me strengthened my data collection and plant and bird identification skills. It has been a challenging but rewarding experience to get to know a completely different ecosystem from what I have spent most of my undergraduate and professional career working in. The sagebrush steppe has very little in common with the tallgrass prairie! I am so glad I took the opportunity to come out to Wyoming, and I am thankful for the connections I have made here.
When I first moved here, it was so strange to be in a place that was so… unpopulated. The culture shock was real for a while, but I think I have really grown to like the small town fee. It has helped me to grow in independence and has made me more comfortable with solitude, something I was not in any way used to before moving out here.

I am especially thankful for my fellow interns, who have made it easier living out here because there is always someone to do things with. The other interns in my office and I have spent a lot of weekends together, hiking, cooking, and going to local concerts. I am happy to have made connections with them as well as the BLM employees in the field office – and lots of memories have been made! My field partner and I have an unknown plethora of field stories, driving down crazy roads, climbing up steep mountains – literally on all fours, and struggling with our GPS when it couldn’t find satellites.

As I end my internship, I look forward to what I have lined up next. In less than a week, I will be starting a new position in Kansas City as an Avian Biology Technician. I believe the work I have done this summer was integral in setting me apart as a candidate for my new position, and I will be taking the skills I have gained with me as I start my new position. I think going into my next job, it will be beneficial to be comfortable with a little isolation. In fact, I expect that being in Kansas City, around so many people and so much development, will be a little overwhelming.

I ended my internship today the same way I started it – hiking in a canyon area about 45 minutes outside of town named “Johnny Behind the Rocks”, looking for raptor nests and habitat, and still somehow having difficulty breathing on the steep inclines – I really should do more cardio! So today, I said my official goodbye to “Johnny” (referring to the waterfall in the canyon). It has been a great adventure, I leave you with a few photos from these last two weeks. Farewell friends!