Bureau of Land Management Internship Program
All it takes is a plane trip from Chicago to California to make
you realize how vast western America is. Now add a trip from California
to Alaska, and you’ll see why the federal Bureau of Land Management
(BLM) asked the Chicago Botanic Garden for help.
The Bureau oversees 260 million acres of land. One of its jobs
is to make sure endangered plants and animals living on this land
are protected. Right now, this Department of Interior agency has
only 54 botanists to help. That’s one for every 4.8 million acres
of land. And fewer than 400 biologists–one for every 650,000 acres.
An internship/mentoring program was created, and with the help
of the Garden, the Bureau is now employing graduate biologists
and botanists during the summer and fall to help ensure that the
diversity of plant and animal life is maintained. The Bureau awarded
the Garden a $900,000 grant over a three-year period.
"We are very excited about the program as we have a tremendous
amount of work to do and not enough people to do it," said Peggy
Olwell, manager of the Bureau’s Endangered Species Program.
Why did the Bureau pick the Garden as a resource? It has the expertise
to recruit and train 20 interns. Garden staff provide the interns
with a broad and practical understanding of what endangered species
need to stay alive–both plants and animals. And the Garden has
the ability to support the interns while they are in the field
in Colorado, Wyoming, California and elsewhere. This all helps
to make the program successful.
"One intern reintroduced endangered black-footed ferrets into
the wild," noted Dr. Lara Jefferson, who manages the intern program.
"Another intern spent her time maintaining watering holes. There
was an incredible drought, and because of her work, they were
able to save a lot of wildlife."
The interns, graduates from universities across the country, are
first given a six-day refresher workshop at the Garden. The training
brings in a variety of Garden staff members. Ed Valauskas and
his staff from the Garden library lead a class about literature
searches. Pati Vitt teaches plant identification, while Susanne
Masi explains plant monitoring. Other experts teach about mapping
skills, Geographical Information Systems (GIS) software, Endangered
Species Act and animal identification.
And then the interns are sent West to help maintain needed diversity
of plant and wildlife across the vast wilderness of BLM land.
"We have the expertise to connect the science to what’s actually
happening in the natural world," said Dr. Jefferson, who came
to the Garden in 2002 from Perth, Australia. And by looking at
nature broadly, the chances of success are much greater.
