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I'm an IC in Boise, ID working with the USGS on post-fire monitoring in the Owyhee mountains. I've been on this project two years already and It's pretty rough spending the entire summer in a treeless, rocky, burnt-out desert but I can't argue with contracts rounding out to ~50k annually. It's way more than I could reasonably earn in a year as a sole proprietor at just over $15/h with discretionary bonuses, but I'm in no position to hire anybody (not even sure that would fly as I work directly with USGS crews and use their vehicles/equipment). Aside from the lack of insurance benefits, I love the freedom contracting affords me. I'd really love to keep on this route and build a small team to take modest contracts, but this whole world of sole proprietorship & state/federal contracting is a kafkaesque nightmare for someone with little experience and no actual business assets to speak of. I have no idea how to find and bid for contracts that I'm actually qualified for at this stage and a lot of advising firms out there seem to be downright predatory scams targeting clueless small business owners. thatguy: I'd appreciate any tips or legit resources if those even exist. What did you do before contracting and for how long? Aside from general field tech, I have experience in fire fighting and trail building but zero organizational experience. Should I just suck it up and find a job in environmental consulting?
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Mar 27, 2018 20:16
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A White Guy posted:This year is already shaping up to be the new worst fire season literally ever. And it's only a fraction as bad as it should be thanks to herculean fire management efforts. The current fire regime isn't quite the new normal, it's going to get way worse. Ever-spreading invasive annual grasses are one thing, but warming climate and widespread changes in precip and weather patterns/pressure systems are likely going to become even more extreme, accelerating both invasive proliferation and fire frequency. This is a badass time to be working in fire (not that it ever isn't), especially for masochists. The take-home message of a research seminar I attended last year on historical climate-wildfire patterns was that fire suppression/prevention will quickly become a game of sisyphean bowling, ultimately forcing us to throw in the towel and simply adapt to massive megafires continuously devastating everything west of the Mississippi year-round. Just a bit of a glimpse at our impending dystopian future. While on the topic of masochism and sisyphus, I'm currently living out of a hotel in Reno for a month while spending 12 hours a day planting 30,000 sagebrush seedlings near the site of a single Sage Grouse lek, to hopefully support a few hens who *might* nest in said sagebrush stand in 3-5 years time if their group manages to survive that long. All this assuming the sagebrush outplants manage their typical 30% survival rate, another fire doesn't rip through the site in the near future, and a bird with an average lifespan of 1.5 years can successfully rear young in an area without any shrubs larger than low sage and rabbit brush to provide cover from predators until the stand matures. "Unshakable optimism" looks great on a resume if you're looking to get into the conservation field, but nihilism is a lot easier to maintain. On the plus side, I'm earning enough per diem to offset my losses at the blackjack table.
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Nov 9, 2018 03:58
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Worst On Team posted:I'm currently putting in applications for 45 week internships with the US Forest Service through AmeriCorps/Mt Adams Institute. Hoping to end up in VA, but have a few back up positions available in IL. Anybody have any tips or experience with an internship? What are your thoughts on slavery/indentured servitude? It can be a perfect entry point if you're passionate about the industry and can't find any other way in, but you can expect to work like a horse and sleep on the ground like a dog for almost no pay. Many of my current coworkers came from Americorps via the Great Basin Institute, and they're generally pretty firm on the "it's slave labor" stance. I personally did a 10-month stint in Americorps NCCC right out of high school, which was where I first started with the forest service. I hated it while I was there and did my best to give all of my superiors 3 or 4 steps up the chain-of-command hell. I appreciate it now, in retrospect, not because I got a job with the USFS but because I formed great friendships (bonding through mutual suffering) and had the opportunity to work cool jobs and live in interesting places; e.g., working for a non-profit tax agency with offices near the top of the Sears Tower in Chicago, hurricane Katrina disaster response in Batton Rouge, wildland firefighting in the Colorado rocky mountains. How grueling it can be depends largely on the institute and people you're working for. I still work with Americorps and GBI kids on large projects occasionally, and they're usually camping on-site for a measly stipend while myself and crews from other agencies are staying off-site in hotels and making bank doing it. It's a hardening experience and I've definitely seen those sorts of conditions break people, but a decent attitude and solid friendships will get you through it even if you're made of tissue paper. That's just my take on the crews I've worked with/heard about, and NCCC is a whole different beast, so your experience may not be quite so rough. I will say, though, I don't have many memories of digging line in an exhausted stupor or spending weeks covered in dirt, sweat, and sap or sleeping under rain and leaky tarp in tall grass with the bugs because I didn't have a tent. I went through that poo poo, no doubt, but most memories of that time in my life are exceedingly positive.
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Dec 13, 2018 03:53
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So, the US Fish and Wildlife Service is flying 120 entry level biologist positions through USAjobs on January 2nd. I have no idea what the jobs will entail, but this is a pretty massive batch hiring effort and I'm sure there are some people around here who might want to move in that direction. I'm considering jumping on it myself although I'm getting a bit disillusioned with government science.Worst On Team posted:I'm pretty open to it. I think deep down I'm looking to recreate my misery in the USMC. I'm also not making any money right now (other than my VA disability for tinnitus and ptstd), so even if I'm just making their lovely stipend and my GI Bill (GI Bill Apprenticeship ($900), lovely stipend (900), Housing (500), and VA Disability 1000 (~3300 a month ), I don't really mind. If I get this internship, sleeping on the dirt and "paying my dues" is fine. Hell, that's kind of what I'm hoping for. Fire jobs with the USFS and BLM don't usually require a secondary education, and you've got a pretty significant advantage with veterans preference. The internship is definitely the safer bet and I definitely think you should do it especially if you're already meeting your financial needs, but you could also try applying for positions just to see if you can get referred. Permanent USFS jobs are incredibly competitive but I don't think you'll have too much trouble as a vet with internship or term employment experience, just make sure to pester hiring supervisors/anyone with sway for a job once your 45 weeks is wrapping up if they don't hand it to you outright.
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Dec 14, 2018 02:06
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Certs have never gotten me anywhere but I'm atypical for govt. work, I guess. Nobody who works a science govt. job gives a poo poo about certs or rules or laws. It's actually pretty loving great. Pure anarchy. I mean, I drive UTV's/ATV's almost every day despite being too busy/on vacation during certs. I've worked with people I've just met who will ask if I'm certified for something, then stop themselves to say "wait, don't answer, I don't care, can you use this machinery without killing anyone?" This is my ideal working environment. Chainsaw A cert is good enough unless you want to be a wildfire tree dropper, and herbicide is especially useful if you can identify invasive species, but that's assuming you'll be moving on to other agencies eventually. You should learn how to fell trees safely, ID invasives, ID insect damage and all that poo poo regardless. Understanding the ecology of your area should be a bigger concern than the certs. Learn the science. It'll serve you better than any bureaucratic protocol in the long-run. My advice tends to be very limited to science jobs, though, because this is where the bulk of my experience is and it's apparently the wild west of government work. Still, understanding basic ecological principals should be mandatory in this line of work.
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Mar 13, 2019 03:04
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Skutter posted:Is there a way for a[n older] noob to get in on this as a career potentially? I went back to school (again) and got an AS in "Environmental Science Technology" and then found approximately 0 jobs that my degree would relate to, even with all of the job and internship experience I had. I even joined the local networking group for environmental jobs (which was just a big circlejerk that new people were clearly not welcome in) and got zilch. Is there a backwards way to ge tin, like with volunteering or something? I'm in central FL, if that helps for any suggestions or advice. You could try getting with an Environmental Consulting firm, Florida is ripe with them. I'll second getting your BS too, both because an AS will definitely limit your federal hiring potential and hounding professors is a sure way of landing a variety of experiences and maybe some paid work.
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Jul 18, 2020 07:09
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Fire is also great if you want to feel the way old 19th century photos of miners and child laborers look. It's been almost 15 years since I last did wildfire and it kicked my rear end hard enough back then, it'd take a lot of drugs to get me through another season digging line today.
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Jul 18, 2020 21:10
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I'm licensed to record, collect, and tow around smelly raptor corpses until I can get to a freezer at the lab, and I'm posting from the field to complain about the cruel circumstance that has me only finding them the first morning of an 8 day stint.
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Aug 4, 2020 00:50
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Or, I tie it to the back of the UTV and try to drive faster than the wind.
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Aug 4, 2020 01:28
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I've been missing this thread, so I checked up on it to find that it's been 1.5 years and I left replies hanging.HenryJLittlefinger posted:Wind farm mortality surveys? No, I'm a plant/fire ecologist, I just collect cadavers when I happen to roll up on them (which is rarely but invariably on the first day of an 8 day hitch, every time) for our resident bird dude, so he can figure out how they died and eventually drop hot potatoes like this big loving deal: Groundbreaking Study Finds Widespread Lead Poisoning in Bald and Golden Eagles California Condors are relatively geographically isolated, hopefully this is the writing on the wall we need to pass some legislation that will reimburse people for giving up their old lead bullets, or the not-really-that-funny comedy option: to organize the bird gestapo to go door-to-door confiscating them. Telsa Cola posted:So you toss them in a cooler until you hit the lab or? I did eventually toss it in an extra cooler and stop in town to buy ice during that trip, then I washed the cooler 3 times when I got home, eventually I gave it away because it's not a stink that ever leaves you. Telsa Cola posted:Ah, hows that conversation go when you run into people in the rear end end of nowhere? Rapidly. A Festivus Miracle posted:Dude, raptors are Serious Business in my profession. I had a coworker find a dead Northern Spotted owl and basically, it was as though he had actually found a dead body. First thing that showed up was the law enforcement officer. Then the vegetation program manager (my boss's boss's boss), and then finally, the biologist and a FWS biologist showed up to confirm that yes, this is in fact a dead bird that died of natural causes and not the activities of my [major West Coast utility]. So this poor guy had to basically spend his entire shift camping out next to a smelly corpse of a bird as various people rolled through to see the dead bird. The response time was kinda nutty too. I've had trees across lines before and had to wait for 12 hours before the tree crew showed up to address it. We once found a golden eagle on the side of the road in bumfuck NV--which could be most of NV but generally north central, near the Ruby Mountains IIRC--tangled in baling twine with truck tracks in the gravel pulling back onto the highway from precisely the spot the corpse was found. It was like a murder scene. Unfortunately, I realized we weren't authorized to collect in NV so we just called USFWS and dropped a hot tip and bounced like we were stoned 14 year old kids who witnessed a homicide. We're running on grant money man, we can't afford to lose a whole day to this poo poo. I wish I could find the photos but digging through 3 years worth of photos (because I can't remember when this was) and 18 different cameras (because I can't remember which one I used) while remoting into the server where thumbnails take 30 seconds to load is maddening. I do really appreciate all the precaution and regulation governing interactions with threatened species, though. It's their home, and they can't just move into low rent housing when we start to gentrify their neighborhood. I mean, I guess we can't really do that anymore either but you get what I'm saying. You only have to spend so much time out in the wilderness to realize that wilderness doesn't really exist anymore. I can't imagine how depressing doing this sort of work East of the Mississippi would be. I have gnarly run-ins with landowners regularly (many guns have been pulled) and I live in a state that is close to having the most federal land in the entire US. I'm mostly in the process of transitioning out of field work into more straight research, but currently I'm the only field going body we have at the moment so I'm really loving lonely and wish I had more people I could talk to about the cool poo poo I find without making them jealous about being work-from-home deskbound, bring this thread back. Here's a slightly janky panorama of one of my favorite spots at the top of the Owyhee front  Those peaks directly behind the foreground are Piute Butte on the right (near the UTV) and Dryden Peak directly to the left of Piute. treat fucked around with this message at 06:39 on Feb 21, 2022 |
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Feb 21, 2022 06:25
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We got archeologists in here? Can any of you tell me what this could be? Looks like some sort of giant Equisetum to me. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3935237#post524137499
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Jun 13, 2022 21:31
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 15:19 |
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Telsa Cola posted:Thats not... thats not what we do. lol whoops, sorry. I may have gotten a bit mixed up with everybody screaming "IT BELONGS IN A MUSEUM" at me all week after finding it. Icon Of Sin posted:Good luck to y’all if you’re at Yellowstone. Every entrance is close because the rivers are busy eating the roads right now. This spring precip has been absolutely nuts. We were on track to have one of the driest years since the mid 19th century until April came and swept us up to 70% of normal, then May, then June. Yesterday's storm forced us to end our stint a little early and it straight dumped on us all the way from NW Nevada to Boise, ID. I don't think I've ever seen rain come down that hard in my entire life. RIP the library books I had in my camping bag. The invasive annuals have been absolutely popping off with all the moisture and I've been seeing cheatgrass growing thick up past my knees even above 7000' elevations and wading through fields of tumble mustard up to my tits. I've never seen anything like it. When this stuff cures it's going to be a living nightmare, the next couple fire seasons in the northern great basin are going to be as deadly as they are busy.
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Jun 14, 2022 01:13
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