My how time flies! I have made it passed the half way mark on my internship. I am surviving the desert heat and still have yet to be bitten by a rattle snake, though I did have a very close call a few weeks back while making a seed collection. Luckily the snake and I came to a very quick mutual decision to get the heck away from each other as fast as possible. We were literally less than a foot away from each other! Despite the hardships of the desert, the heat, the sweat, and all the salt everywhere, I am truly going to miss this place in a few months when my internship ends. I can’t believe I’m over the half way mark.

In addition to seed collections and plant monitoring I have been doing a lot of work with the desert pupfish. This includes monitoring, surveys, and relocation efforts.

These are male pupfish in their breeding colors at Dos Palmas

Here we see both female (brown with stripes) and male (blue) pupfish at Dos Palmas

These fish are protected under the federal endangered species act and only occur in a very limited number of places. As summer temperatures persist, local streams and other habitat is prone to drying up. It is then that we go in and execute rescue missions, trapping and relocating populations to safer, more stable waters to ensure their survival.

This work is very rewarding and when I go back home at the end of the day, wash off the sweat and mud, I get to think of all the endangered fish that now swim happily among other of their species in safe waters that won’t dry up this summer or there after. I even made the weekly BLM news bytes: /https://blmca.sites.usa.gov/2016/08/11/from-the-field-releasing-pupfish/ And here too at the Fisheries and aquatics program blog: http://fisheriesprogram.blogspot.com/2016/08/pupfish-conservation-in-dos-palmas-acec.html and a video which is on the BLM’s Facebook and Twitter pages!