Opening: Wild Horse Internship, Humboldt-Toiyabe NF – FILLED

Location: The Humboldt-Toiyabe (H-T) National Forest Austin Ranger District is located 170 miles east of Reno in north-central Nevada. The District’s over 1 million acres are located near what has been dubbed the loneliest highway in America, U.S. Hwy 50. Highway 50 runs through the huge town of Austin, population approximately 250, making Austin the closest “large” town and home to the Austin Ranger Station. As is the case with most seasonal employees, they travel to other Districts to provide additional support as needed. Centrally locating the intern in Austin would allow for relatively quick travel to the other Districts with WHBTs.

This internship would provide additional capacity to conduct needed fieldwork on our Wild Horse and Burro Territories (WHBTs). WHBTs cover over 1 million acres on the H-T with the majority of that area located on the Austin-Tonopah Ranger District. Due to overpopulation, horses and burros have expanded beyond territory boundaries and now occur on approximately 2 million acres of the H-T. The H-T WHB program relies mostly on Range and Wildlife staff for fieldwork needs. Having an intern dedicated to the program will allow the H-T to better document animal body conditions and resource concerns while assisting our Range Staff with various Wild Horse and Burro monitoring needs.

The Intern will be directly supervised and mentored by the District Ranger with the District Range Conservationist being the work program leader.

The District has suitable housing for the duration of the internship.

All necessary equipment, workspace and supplies are in place for the intern. However, if the intern has personal camping or field gear that they would prefer to use, they are welcome to bring it.

Desired skills and abilities:

• Motivated, enthusiastic, self-starter
• Valid driver’s license
• Experience driving on rugged, remote roads, safety conscious

Unique information about the WHB Program, forest, and work opportunity that may attract an applicant:

• Has 10 of the 34 active Wild Horse and Burro Territories (WHT) in the Forest Service System with significant complexity with adjacent BLM Herd Management Areas (HMAs), Vacant BLM and USFS allotments.
• Currently undergoing an Environmental Assessment on one WHT with a Decision slated for July 2018.
• Assessing and prioritizing program support needs.
• Learning upland and riparian monitoring Wild horse and burro counts Remote Duty Station in Austin, NV with the largest District in the lower 48 states to work within.
• Gain experience with other functional program areas (fire, wildlife, archeology, watershed, etc.) as well as experience in working with partners.

Products the intern would develop:

• Utilization maps
• Photo records/field reports documenting animal body conditions and range conditions
• Documentation of conditions of water sources in and near territories

Working with partners and others:

The Austin-Tonopah District works closely with many partners. The intern would likely have the opportunity to interact with ranchers, Nevada Department of Wildlife (NDOW) and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) employees, which would allow them to hear other perspectives on WHB management and land management in general.

Interested applicants, please call Joshua Rosenau at 406-275-4056.