As the end of the semester looms ever closer, deadlines are fast approaching. In preparation for our preliminary poster sessions next week, I have completed a draft of my poster. It’s been a huge push to get everything onto the 30″x40″ poster, but I’m happy with how it’s turned out! In the near future, I […]
Entering the US Forest Service
Burns is a small post-timber community in eastern Oregon. It’s population of 2,800 people, the highest in the area, reflects the sparsely populated land of Harney County. People here like the open space. The sky is big here.
In the nights, it’s quiet apart from the two bars in town, one of which served as a hub for the Bundy terrorists. Possibly attributed to the occupation that occurred here last year, I got the feeling that there seem to be two distinct presences in this town: the government and the people. Ironically, almost all of the locals I talked to during my time there wanted the anti-government occupiers out of Burns/Hines (the community connected next to Burns), but the effects of the occupation seemed still very present in the area. There are very few non-white folks in this town.
After the fall of the timber industry in Burns/Hines, the major employer in these towns became the US Forest Service, a federal lands-management agency dedicated to conservation of 193 millions of acres of US soil; if you’ve gone hiking in the states before, chances are it was on land managed by the Forest Service. This is where I began my journey as an official federal employee.
In the past four summer seasons from 2013-2016, I’ve held various positions relating to the Environmental Studies. Here is a quick list of the first three positions:
- 2013 Wilderness/Trails Recreation intern, US Forest Service, Fremont-Winema National Forest (Oregon)
- 2014 Interpretation Ranger intern, National Park Service, Grand Teton National Park (Wyoming)
- 2015 Apprentice Crew Leader, Student Conservation Association, Chugach National Forest (Alaska)
Each of the summers has been an experience full of new lessons and challenges, and this past 2016 summer season was no exception. As a Biological Science Technician in the Malheur National Forest, I had a range of tasks to complete that required the application of skills or knowledge I had gained in my education, my duties changed according to the stages of the reproductive cycles of birds and the annual dissipation of seasonal streams.
Getting ready for a day’s worth of field-work
For the first few weeks, I trekked across a vast area of the Malheur National Forest looking for Northern Goshawk and Pileated Woodpecker nests using handheld game callers loaded with the territorial calls of various birds. In the beginning, finding these nests in the middle of huge swaths of forestland proved fruitless, but as I began to understand and familiarize myself with the eco-systems and characteristics of this area (not to mention the behavior of its inhabitants), locating nests became very much more an investigative challenge rather than a needle-in-a-haystack affair. It’s nearly impossible to walk around the forest looking for specific species and not notice the other wildlife; from elk to bears, raptors to herons, and of course, the cattle, each new day was a learning experience in field biology and taxonomy.
