First Day in the Field

Saturday I had a split shift, I was giving a talk about bats in the morning at one campground and the evening at another. The day started off pretty easily, I showed up at the first campground, walked around and talked to people for a while and went to give the talk at 10. The "Bats are Beneficial Beasts" talk is aimed at children and six adults show up so it turned into a question and answer/chit chat about bats. It was pretty fun, I liked the people that came.

Because I had the middle of the day off I went to Hume Lake where I was going to give my next presentation that evening. I spent the day walking around, reading, and swimming, it was very nice! Then when I needed to begin making my rounds about the campground telling folks the event of the evening I changed into my uniform and le the camp directors know what I was up to. They were confused; apparently D-- the bird lady always does presentations there Saturday night. Lo and behold! D-- arrived and I got out of doing a presentation. Best part? She going to teach me how to handle raptors!! She said I could hold the red tailed hawk next week when we walk around the campgrounds and she'll hold the great horned owl!

As soon as D-- and I finished our roving of the campground telling people about her presentation 7, a woman walked up to me asking for help.

It turns out that her friends had accidentally left her behind at the place they were hiking and she had hitch hiked a ride back. She needed help trying to contact her friends. Unfortunately, the places where her friends were and where some of her things were was all in Park Service lands. So I was on the radio with Forest Service dispatch who was on the phone with Park Service dispatch who was on the radio with their rangers in the area. I had to wait at the campground until all her party finally arrived. Some took a while because they went back to look for her after she had already left. I ended up leaving Hume Lake at 9PM. But the lady and her friends were really nice and fed me a big dinner and gave me Snapple.

When I got back to the barracks at 10:30, one of the girls I work with was getting ready to freak out. She had heard the beginning of my radio conversation while driving home but didn’t know I had to wait at the campground so she was really worried! All’s well that ends well though.

Interpretation

Today is morning number six at Giant Sequoia National Monument. There was quite a rush to get here, but once you arrive everything slows down. So far there has been an interesting mix of camper time and professionalism. My supervisor is definitely the on time, efficient type. She is the District Planner, in charge of making sure all environmental laws are followed within her district, on top of being in charge of the three of us interpretive interns. It seems nearly every long time Forest Service employee has multiple jobs and titles assigned to them over time. So M-- is the district planner but she is also in charge of interpretation. I learned the other day that there is no budget anywhere in the Forest Service for interpretation. Those interested in having interpreters must carve the money from the recreation and wilderness departments within their district. In this case, the three of us interns are paid through the Student Conservation Association. The Forest Service just has to give us a place to stay, reimburse the driving that we do as part of our job, and pay for the indirect cost of people dealing with more paperwork.

When I speak of an interpreter I mean someone who teaches visitors about a forest, park, monument, historical site, etc without simply relaying information. In one of the interpretive theory books we are assigned to read the author described interpretation as a cross between an art and a science.

Part of our job yesterday was to walk around Hume Lake, to try and familiarize ourselves with the area. We then met up with a long time Forest Service volunteer who does raptor programs. This woman is amazing; she has a house in the middle of the city where she rehabilitates wild animals, or cares for those that can’t be rehabilitated. She has large cages in her backyard where she keeps owls, she has had deer and coyotes running around before, and a red-tailed hawk that just lives in the house. The opportunity to talk to this woman and have her as a resource will be wonderful. She is an encyclopedia of local plant and animal knowledge.

D-- and a Burrowing Owl