Reflections from summer ecological monitoring staff

Written by  Collin McElroy, Zoë Morris, and Taylor Cain

This Summer, the Forest Stewards Guild hired a crew of two Ecological Monitoring Technicians to assist with the multiparty monitoring efforts within the Rio Chama Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program (CFLRP). The two seasonal technicians, Zoë Morris and Taylor Cain, traveled all over Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado collecting data on landscape health and forest treatment effectiveness. Both Zoë and Taylor did a fantastic job collecting quality data in the face of adverse weather conditions, long field days, truck problems, and many other unforeseen circumstances. Here are season reflections written by Zoë and Taylor:

“I took the job as an Ecological Monitoring Technician at the Forest Stewards Guild to be immersed in the landscape of the Southwest for the summer. My other primary work is as an educator in the forest of southern Louisiana, and I was eager to return to the Southwest to be in these dry forests and engage with the woods through a different lens. Doing field work for the Guild gave me the opportunity to thoroughly explore the landscape of northern New Mexico, getting to experience a diverse array of places. We performed several different protocols, including forest plot monitoring in the Santa Fe and Carson National Forests, sampling for traces of trout DNA in waterways, installing temperature sensors in streams for long-term study, monitoring for white pine blister rust in the rare bristlecone pines along the high peaks of the Sangre de Cristos, and using devices and gadgets to test water quality in the San Antonio River. Though it could be tiring and monotonous at times, spending a summer in the field doing forest monitoring helped me to understand the underlying ecology more intimately. I got to know which plants you were likely to find growing together, what kinds of environments different plants are usually found in; I became acquainted with the abundance and diversity of wildflowers, the difference between healthy and overgrown forests, where expanses of ponderosas grow densely and too packed in to grow tall and mighty like you might see them somewhere else. I grew to resent robust thickets of Gambel’s Oak, because for us this meant crawling on the ground through the snagging branches to measure the base diameter of each trunk.  

While learning a lot and honing my ability to identify and size-up plants, I was simultaneously confronted with the difficulty of imposing categorical information systems on a wild and evolving landscape. There are ways in which science and forestry are wondrously effective at understanding what is going on in a forest, and ways in which it misses it completely. You can’t glean from data the effusive fragrance of a forest filled with ponderosa pines, or the sense of magic that filters through the vibrant, shimmering leaves in an aspen grove. For each tree, shrub, and flower that we counted and measured, there is individuality and a living presence. Some plants defiantly toe the line between being a tree and being a shrub, forcing upon the observer the scientist’s nightmare of context dependence. This is to say, the data we collected does not represent the forest in its fullness and complexity. To describe the forest in its fullness through numbers would be maddening and impossible. But I hope the data we gathered can be helpful in tracing patterns of how human activity and intervention, both helpful and destructive, affects the land and its capacity to function as a comprehensive and self-sustaining ecosystem.” – Zoë Morris, Ecological Monitoring Technician, Summer 2024 

“As I sat at our camp high up in the El Rito watershed and watched the clouds fly by overhead, illuminated by a rapidly changing spectrum of sunset color, I couldn’t help but feel privileged to be there. We were camped near El Rito to collect eDNA samples to understand more about the presence or absence of native and non-native trout species within the El Rito drainage system. Over the course of this week we faced torrential rain, nearly impassable roads, and countless steep miles of hiking, and I couldn’t have been happier about all of it.  

This is just one memorable experience from my field season as an ecological monitoring technician with the Forest Stewards Guild in the summer of 2024. Although this season was barely more than two months long, it was packed with a variety of learning opportunities and adventure. My field partner, Zoe Morris, and I participated in work ranging from monitoring bristlecone pines for white pine blister rust with Mountain Studies Institute to collecting water quality samples in partnership with Amigos Bravos. It

seemed that we never did the same type of work two weeks in a row. 

This position offered us the opportunity to explore and study many of the diverse landscapes that make Northern New Mexico such a unique and beautiful place. The primary focus of this study was to characterize the condition of forest land within the Rio Chama Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Project. Our work for the CFLPR involved establishing monitoring plots which will be regularly revisited to collect a variety of data from stands of trees in which a treatment (prescribed fire, thinning, etc.) is planned. This data will be used by forest managers to gain a greater understanding of the baseline health of these systems and evaluate the effectiveness of treatment methods. 

I had just finished my first year of graduate study in the Water Resources Program at the University of New Mexico when I started this position, and it proved to be just the right dose of meaningful time in the woods that I needed. I learned a great deal throughout the course of this short season and am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to participate in a project with so much potential to improve the lives and landscapes that make New Mexico such a special place.” – Taylor Cain, Ecological Monitoring Technician, Summer 2024 

Thank you so much to Zoë and Taylor for their integral help in the Rio Chama CFLRP monitoring season!