Telemetry Work with the FWS

This week in the exciting life of a Fish and Wildlife service (FWS) intern, Cedric and I took a two-day trip to the Pearl and Bouge Chitto Rivers to collect telemetry data on the endangered gulf sturgeon. This telemetry work we are doing consists of 28 receivers that are placed all along the rivers. These receivers can sense when a sturgeon that has been tagged with an acoustic transmitter swims by. So what we were doing those two days consisted of pulling up the receivers to download the data and replacing the batteries in all of the receivers.

 We started our day bright and early Monday morning at 6:30am and headed out to the Slidell area to launch the boat. The first day we borrowed a boat from the fish hatchery at Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF), which was awesome because this boat had seats with backs on them!

After we launched the boat at our first site, the Bouge Chitto River, we drove out to our first receiver and Cedric taught me how to download the data to the computer and how to change the battery. The second site we boated to, we had to tie up and hike to, which was defiantly an adventure. By the end of the first day we had boated and driven to three different locations and worked on five different receivers.

At the start of the second day, we drove back to the LDWF fish hatchery to switch out our boats. Instead of borrowing LDWF’s boat again, we went out in a large metal boat that belonged to the FWS. The best part about this boat was that it had seats with backs on them and it had a 225 horsepower motor.

We launched the boat in the lower Pearl River because that’s where the majority of the rest of the receivers were. This was the largest boat/trailer that I’ve ever had to back up and launch, but in the words of Cedric, I totally nailed it! For the rest of the day we boated to twenty-two different sites to work on the receivers.   

The last site we had to go to we had to load the boat back up and walk to because the receiver was placed on someone’s dock.

By the end of the two days, I think both Cedric and I were completely exhausted. Through working in the field those two days I learned so much about telemetry and I think its so interesting. I love that the main goal of studying these creatures is to see where they like to live at different seasons and compare that with their spawning seasons. Ultimately, we are trying to figure out where the gulf sturgeon likes to spawn at so we can try and protect them and I just think that that is awesome. 

Most of the receivers we pulled up were attached to solid structures right beside the river, such as this tree. 

This is one of the receivers that we pulled up and serviced. 

A picture of me sitting on a tree limb in front of the dam in the Bouge Chitto river. 

A picture from the dam in the Pearl River. 

Week 7 - More Rare Moss and Prairie Work

This past week I went back up to Pineville to help look for more rare moss. I found more bobcat and opossum tracks and a huuuge nest of grand daddy long legs. If there is one thing I have learned about being in the woods this past couple of weeks, its that I hate spiders and spider webs. Now I don't mind if they are doing their own little things in their own little worlds, but not on my face. Literally. Walking into spider webs every 10 seconds does not rank high on my to do list.

I also went out to Lake Charles again to do more plant plots in the prairie. I've come to be very fond of the prairie and will be very sad to never see it again, particularly the ranch we most visited. It's such a different and pretty place to visit, and there are no spider webs on my face, which is a plus. The only really negative downside to doing this work for 14 hour days is the miserable heat. It's just too dang hot. But it is preferable to being stuck inside all the time. And I am looking forward to my last week because I will be doing work with gopher tortoises and hopefully get to go see some pitcher plants.

Week 7 - The Start of Veg Season

I now see why everyone has been warning me about vegetation survey field work. It is not a walk in the park. It is difficult field work, long hours in the hot and humid Louisiana swamps. We did one site on Monday and it was the hardest. I am glad it got it out the way. CRMS site 0090 will forever be my enemy. Solid ground did not exist as we pushed through chest deep thick mud to obtain our data. My job was to measure diameter at breast height, DBH, of the trees in each plot. Each site had three plots in which we collected data from.

 I also used a densitometer to estimate canopy cover of each site. This was a convex mirror that had small squares, four corners, and wherever trees did not touch one of the corners you would count that as one. Numbers were collected from the north, east, south, and west directions in each plot.

Understory and herbivorous data was also collected from each plot in the sites. I helped record this data. All aspects of the data collection taught me a lot about the vegetation throughout the Louisiana swamp.

While eating lunch one day we happened to make an alligator friend. I posted a picture below, he/she is camouflaged so it is hard to see at first. I do not want my opening comments to sound as if I was complaining. It was hard, but I had a fun time being out in the swamp and learning. Even though I switched majors does not mean I lost my overall interest in our natural world. I am happy with what I am doing and excited for the next week of vegetation surveys. 

Trip to See Caernarvon! (Week seven at NFWF)

Most of this week has been taken up by making comments on full Texas proposals. I’m also learning more about how NFWF interacts with the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) to acquire land through conservation easements. NFWF provides matching funds to NRCS funds under a Gulf agreement, which expands conservation throughout the five Gulf states. The lands that are acquired are then managed and monitored by the agencies in charge to ensure the protection of these environments.

Can you spot the alligator?

                The highlight of my week has definitely been a trip that I took on Wednesday to see the Caernarvon Diversion in Big Mar Pond. This diversion was originally built as a freshwater project to regulate the salinity of an abandoned agricultural field. Construction began in 1988 and was finished in 1991. The diversion was designed to allow the flow of up to 8,000 cubic feet per second of freshwater from the Mississippi River to Big Mar to enhance the wildlife communities. The response that the diversion has elicited since it was built was one that no one expected. Even though it was solely a freshwater diversion, there was still enough sediment flowing through to actively build more wetlands. Over time the building of freshwater swamp and marsh has been so successful that the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation has been able to plant cypress trees to help keep the sediments intact and provide another line of defense against large storms. It is almost impossible to navigate certain parts of Big Mar in a motorboat because it has seen such a large addition of land. We had to board an airboat in order to get the full tour! The first stop was to see the actual diversion structure, which is currently closed off from the river. For whatever reason, this is also the area where all of the large alligators hang around. After about five minutes of shutting off the boat, alligators popped up everywhere. Most of them were around or above ten feet, and seemed very comfortable with us being there and would swim right up to the boat. Our tour guide, Theryn, told us that this is one of the spots that LDWF releases alligators and their population is doing very well. Then we went out to see all of the wetlands that were created since the diversion was opened. It created a new bayou that they named “Bayou Bonjour,” a play on the book Bayou Farewell written by Mike Tidwell (sidenote: this is a seriously awesome book about Louisiana's wetlands that you all should read.) After passing through Bayou Bonjour, we got to see the success of the cypress trees that were planted five years ago, and we also got to see the younger trees that were planted this year. The small trees are wrapped with Nutria Exclusion Devices to prevent predation. As they grow, the “NED’s” will eventually pop off by themselves. It was cool to see the environmental gradient go from SAV (submerged aquatic vegetation) to different types of marsh grasses to a full blown swamp filled with cypress and tupelo trees. More growth is expected to occur, which will only increase the biodiversity and species richness of this area. I was personally able to see all of this diversity among the plants and wildlife, especially the birds. We saw lots of different wading birds, herons, egrets, rails, and waterfowl. One of the women on our boat worked for the Audubon Society, so she was really helpful in identifying all the different birds we saw. I had so much fun, and it was awesome to be able to see a very successful diversion that has been in place for over 20 years. Here's a bunch of pictures from my experience!

The actual diversion structure

Bayou Bonjour

Vegetation and land created by the diversion

Newly planted Cypress trees (in their NED's!)

Obviously super excited about being on an airboat

LDWF Week 5 - ducks and rare moss w/ pics!

During week five I went duck banding at 3 o'clock in the morning, and I drove up to Pineville to look for some kind of rare moss. Have no idea what the name of it is, so don't ask. But back to duck banding... I have never been before, so I was not full sure in what to expect. It was all pretty tedious at first setting up everything...in the dark, but once that cannon goes off, and I get over the fact I'm not dying, everything escalates pretty quickly from there. The guys I'm with sprint out to get baskets and get to wood ducks quickly, while I'm just trudging along behind them wondering what I needed to do. Banding the ducks themselves was pretty cool. I mean it's not everyday you get to hold wild ducks and such. I wish I had got a picture, but I didn't have my phone on me because of the whole jumping into the water thing. Huh...oh well.

Now in Pineville, even though we were outside the whole day, it wasn't so bad since we were in the shady woods all day. It was pretty fun waking around in the swamp and forest, but let me tell you, if there is one thing that ruins anybody's day, it's chiggers. It stunk like a Monday after vacation.
So lesson learned. DONT FORGET TO PUT BUG SPRAY ON!!

and here are some more pretty pics from my day in Pineville

beaver marks

water moccasin  

LDWF Week 6 - pine snakes, electroW, and alligators w/ pics

Hey guys,
Soooo this past week was a busy week. I had the opportunity to go do alligator releases, electroshocking, and hunt for Louisiana pine snakes. Alligator releases is basically tagging alligators at alligator farms that need to be released back into the wild. We only had to do about 250, but they can do over 700. Electroshocking was neat, but very, very hot. We caught a variety of fish including baby alligator gar, eels, blue gills, largemouth bass, buffalo fish, etc. It was definitely really cool though.
Looking through snake traps for pine snakes was really awesome too, since I really live snakes, but it was also a extremely long day, a 15 hour day to be exact. I had to drive to Lake Charles, then we had to make a 3 hour drive to Bienville, which makes for a long day in the car. Handling snakes was cool. We found many, many snakes, but most importantly we found 2 pine snakes. One was an older girl, who had already been tagged. The other was a young juvenile, which had never been tagged before. Other snakes we caught included coach whips, cottonmouths, a copperhead, swarovki corn snakes, and a rat snake, Other animals caught included a bunny, mouse, lizard and two birds.
Here is a picture of a Louisiana pine snake:

and more pics:

copperhead and coachwhip

Even though I work long, hot days most of the time, I am really glad I have gotten experience in a variety of areas.

Week 6

Finally we are done with our competition! It has been printed and shipped. This last week I have been working on fixing up the descriptions and wording of the blurbs for each map and graphic we have created. I also had the large task of tracking down all of the sources that were used in the creation of the boards- there were a lot. It was a long night but it got done and it was a great feeling. I think the boards came out pretty well. We will have to wait a few months to find out who won but win or not, it was a great experience. It feels great to see a final output for all the work I have been doing for the last two and a half weeks. Take a look for yourself:

Competitions aside the office began to pick back up on the work with CPRA and the Water Campus exhibit. This week I continued to write up information to go on the SWAMP kiosk. I was also asked to redesign the kiosk to better compliment the SWAMP program. I will preface by saying I have next to zero design experience so this was a new hurdle for me, but I accepted the challenge and tried by best. I can now say I have some knowledge of Adobe illustrator and now know how to operate it. I'm sure I'll be working on it some more over the next two weeks so I'll be able to learn more. 

NFWF Week 6

After finishing decomposition sampling collection last week, this week I was back in the office. I finally finished up the feldspar accretion data sheets that will be used up in the upcoming vegetation season that starts on Monday. After that it was a pretty slow week, just preparing for the craziness that comes with vegetation season starting next week. I read the standard operation procedure, SOP, for collecting the vegetation survey data. We will site various swamp and marsh sites surveying the vegetation there and see how it is changing over past years. RSET and feldspar data will also be collected at some sites. It is going to be a very busy and long two weeks in the field until the end of the internship, but I am excited for the experience. Today I began to work on data sheets for GIS work. I do not know really anything about GIS so I did not have a great understanding, but I was beginning to learn. The best part of looking at a majority of the CRMS sites locations and conditions. This gave me a better overall idea of the project I have been working with all summer. I will be enjoying my relaxing weekend before starting veg season, as I have been warned.

Proposals and River Diversions!

                The first half of this week was spent going through the other two proposals that I wanted to work on that have recently come in. One is an artificial oyster reef plan in Mississippi and the other is a restoration project in the Choctawhatchee Bay in Florida. After doing some digging I came up with a lot of comments to send back to each of the states. They both have a bit more research to do before going through with their plans. The first thing I look at when analyzing a proposal is plea compliance. It needs to meet the criteria set by the plea made by BP and Transocean after the oil spill. These conditions include what kind of restoration takes place, what species are involved, and if the project has some connection to the Gulf Coast and was affect by the oil spill or can mitigate future similar disasters. The next thing I look for is accurate information. Sometimes proposals cite papers, but they’ll only take out a line from the abstract and they don’t actually explain the whole paper or leave out crucial information. Sometimes certain factors aren’t accounted for like prior research. For example, the oyster proposal would want to do certain surveys in the Mississippi Sound that has already been done by other agencies.

                We also had our weekly update conference call on Monday between all the members of the GEBF to make sure things are staying on track. Thursday was exciting because I got to hang out with the Senior Vice President of the Gulf Environmental Benefit Fund, Tom Kelsch, and our Vice President of Human Resources, Beth Smith. They flew in from DC to help with interviews for a new position that is opening up for NFWF in Baton Rouge.

                Now I am starting to look into river diversion projects. I’ve been looking at the pros and cons of building wetlands with diversions as opposed to building them with dredged sediments and how the fishing communities in coastal Louisiana are responding. I will hopefully be going to see one at some point next week! I can’t believe I only have two weeks left, but I’ve met so many cool people and I’ve learned so much. I’m excited to see what these next two weeks have in store for me!

Week 5- more competition work

This past week has been full of more competition work. It has been keeping everyone busy and thinking. We were originally supposed to be finished by now but ours is due in a few days so my team has just been working solely on the competition. I have been tasked with writing some of the content to describe the maps and graphics we have created. It has taken a large portion of my time to research and gather information about the maps and making sure they are all grammatically correct. While it has been a busy week it has been full of new learning experiences for me. I used Adobe Illustrator for the first time this week. It was not as confusing as I thought it was going to be and I was actually able to teach myself a few things on my own. The project is coming along nicely but there is still a lot of work to be done.

NFWF Week 5

This week in the NFWF internship I was in the field the entire time. We left Monday morning and headed back to Houma to tend too our CRMS sites there. An LSU PhD student was with us Monday. He was studying something dealing with marsh ants. I do not know many specifics to his research. Throughout the week we collected cotton strips that were left in the marsh for the decomposition research. As discussed before, the cotton strips will be used to find tension in the fibers. Also, at some sites we had to replace poles as some were in bad condition or lost. I got to see some new sites when we went to Lockport and Lafitte as well. It was good to be out in the field more to get the experience. I am becoming very comfortable being out in the marsh, walking around and falling through every step of the way. This is not the type of work I will be wanting to do in my professional career but it is very important to find out what you don't like to figure out what you do like. I have been starting to rethink my decision of majors and soon I believe I will be making a change.

This week at NFWF (AKA figuring out my whole life plan)

            This week flew by for me! Monday was spent at the library digging up information on artificial reefs. I’m learning so much about the specific needs of these reef fish, and how artificial reefs can actually increase fishing pressure if they are not placed in the proper locations. Jon was also able to go visit a potential coastal restoration project site at a Wildlife Management Area in Texas to get an idea of whether or not it would be worth the time and money to do the project. This information gets sent to a board of people at NFWF who ultimately decide what projects get funded. On Tuesday we discussed what I found on the reefs, and I began to look into a new proposal we just got in from Mississippi on researching and expanding their oyster reefs. Wednesday I got to listen in on the project presentations from the NFWF interns at UVA! They are all assigned to a mentor and pick a NFWF program or project to do research on. Most of them had to do with the progress and future outcomes of the projects. These presentations were just to show the progress they’ve made so far, and they will have final updates when the summer is over. However, this gave Jon and Tanner the grand idea to try and convince me do a project. Thankfully they were kidding…I think! Thursday morning, we grabbed breakfast at Louie’s with Jean Cowan, who works for NOAA. I was so excited to meet her and ask questions. She works a lot with the natural resources affected by the oil spill so she’s been extremely busy with the recent settlement that BP made. She gave me a lot of great advice for my future. She attended the Southern University of Alabama for graduate school, and they have a marine mammal research program that I’m extremely interested in, so I got to talk to her all about that, as well.

            My week has also been full of conference calls. On Tuesday we went over updates on current projects throughout the Gulf, most which are on track and successful, but also few here and there that are causing some stress. We also had a call about the artificial reefs proposal mostly to communicate between NOAA and NFWF, to discuss any problems to make note of, and to discuss what comments need to be sent back. This week I've learned a lot that science isn't alway the only motive behind decisions. There is a lot of politics and other factors that need to be considered to keep stakeholders happy, and it's interesting to see how to balance all of these things.

            Finally, I’m coordinating with Michelle Pico, NFWF’s program director for marine conservation projects (specifically marine mammals and turtles) to ask her some questions. I’m extremely interested to research mammals or turtles in grad school and as a career so I’m super excited to get to talk with her! I’m looking forward to asking her how she got her job and what advice and direction she could give to me. These past two days I've been looking a lot into what I want to do in the future and what graduate programs I want to apply too. It's so exciting...and scary. But mostly really cool, especially when I get to consult with people who can give me guidance!