Clade 5: Wyoming: The Early Days

I’m back.

It’s been awhile; a few months, and I’m in a different country with a new project focusing on a different question altogether.

Wyoming: The Equality state: So named because women were granted the right to vote here in 1869, well before they were given that right nationally.

Wyoming isn’t known for its open-mindedness any longer. In fact, granting women the right to vote was based more heavily on a lack of overall population than the recognition of equality. But I’m not here to study the political climate. I’m here for the birds (and not the ones given the right to vote in 1869. Good one).

Quick rundown on the project:

The vegetation community in the mountains of southern WY (Wyoming, for those of you not studying the postal arts) is made up of Limber Pine, Sub-alpine Fir, and Englemann’s Spruce. Lumber has always been a big industry here. In the 80’s there was a movement to stop big clear cuts (clear cut- removal of all trees in an area, leaving it clear of trees) in favor of many, smaller clear cuts spread throughout a section of forest. The thought was that these smaller clear cuts, or patch cuts, would promote forest regeneration on a shorter timeline.

Studies had already been done showing the effects of large clear cuts on avian (bird) communities, so the US Forest Service wanted to see if there was a difference in the effects of patch cuts on avian communities and started a study to show just that. They did this by choosing an area that had been patch cut (Coon Creek) and an area very nearby and with the same forest composition that had not been patch cut as a control (East fork). This study went on for 12 years, form 1985 to 1997. In this time, there was a bunch of bureaucratic drama. Jobs were lost, jobs were gained, money was made available, money was squandered. Mistakes were made. Data was collected, but nothing was ever published. Nothing was ever even analyzed.

Enter the star of our show: the pine mountain beetle. This, as many of you know, is a voracious little eater with a taste for trees. AKA’d as the bark beetle, the Ips beetle, and the Forest Slayer (that’s mine), we are seeing huge impacts on forests, especially pine forests, because of this little insect. In this area, around 80% of the Limber Pine trees older than 40 years are dead. Yikes.

So now we have a defunct study that has 12 years of data regarding bird communities in a forest that has been decimated by a bug. Perfect! In short, what we are doing is sampling an area that has been hit by the Pine Mountain Beetle in order to compare our data with the data collected before the beetle infestation, so we can see what the effects on bird communities might be. There. Simple.

Methods. Sort of.

The way we do this is by walking. A lot. We revisit existing transects (lines) that are 2 miles long each. Every 200 meters there is a point. We count the birds we see or hear by species at every point for 10 minutes. We have to get there first which is a pain. There has been up to 96 inches of snow on the ground in the study site since the end of May. May!!! What the hell! That means that we have to use snowmobile to get to our transects, then snowshoes to walk the transects. Now the snow is mostly gone…at least you can navigate around it without needing snowshoes much, so we use ATV’s and 4wd trucks to get from camp to our transects. Not so bad.

At least I know what to expect from an ATV. Snowmobiles slide on the ground. Slide. That is an action verb I have avoided since my baseball career ended. I do not slide. It implies a lack of control that is fundamentally dangerous, and especially uncomfortable. Maybe I’ll slide on a wood floor when I’m wearing cotton socks. But probably not. Not to mention the apparatus on which you are sliding weighs over 600 pounds (I mean the snowmobile, not me in cotton socks).
With an ATV, you hit the break, it stops. You turn the handlebars, it turns. You don’t have to hang off of the thing like a Cirque de’ Soleil acrobat to get it to ‘slide’ in your preferred direction. The wheels do that. That’s another thing. Wheels. Now there’s an idea I can get behind. Rolling, turning, solid, dependable wheels. With tires. Comfort in the little things.

So needless to say, I was glad to get through my first ‘snowmobile season’ with no crushing injuries. I also didn’t send the thing ‘sliding’ down a ravine to a fiery doom. Also an unexpected positive. The weather is now beautiful, we’ve hit our stride with data collection, meaning everyone knows there job, and we are all doing it. The rivers and creeks in the area have subsided to acceptable fishing levels, so we fish from time to time. Trout. Fun as hell.

All in all, it a pretty sweet gig. Working for the University of Wyoming (my direct employer and the inheritor of the USFS data) is great. We stay in camper trailers up on the mountain. We have a nice house down in the town of Encampment for the weekends, which we have off from work. They’ve given us a couple of nice 4wd Suburbans to use from the university fleet. We are well taken care of. And on a bad day, I wake up to walk in a pine forest during sunrise to watch and listen for songbirds. Eat your heart out, CPA’s.